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September is Diversity Month in Uruguay, and several departments and municipalities are planning activities. While the Montevideo City Hall (IM) launched a celebration, it decided not to authorize the Diversity March for the second year in a row, in compliance with the presidential decree prohibiting gatherings due to the pandemic. However, the Diversity March Coordinating Committee will proceed with the event, which is scheduled for the last Friday of the month.

Unlike last year, when the gathering was in Cagancha Square, this time the march will begin at the intersection of Libertador Avenue and Paysandú Street. The meeting will take place on Friday, September 24th at 7:00 PM. Spinetti explained that the starting point was changed to "maintain safety precautions"; since the avenue is wider, "it allows for better social distancing," he noted.

Faced with the proposal from LGBT+ groups to continue with the mobilization, the IM decided to take charge of the street closures and the cleaning after the mobilization, Colette Spinetti, a member of the Trans Collective of Uruguay (CTU), which is part of the coordinating body, told la diaria.

Spinetti argued that the municipality's decision is "contradictory." "When private companies come in or when there are economic benefits, things are allowed. But when there's a demonstration called by civil society in defense of rights, especially in the context we're in today, it's practically criminalized," he said.

Protests against transfemicides

In another statement, Spinetti also asserted that the cases concerning the murders committed between 2011 and 2012 have not progressed.

Nicolás Gonella, the man prosecuted this Thursday for the threats made by the Barneix Command, said he was the perpetrator of five transfemicides, according to the prosecutor specializing in Sexual Crimes, Sylvia Lovesio, during the formalization hearing for child pornography.

“It emerges from one of the blogs on his public pages that the accused, in conversation with a link to an organization abroad, claims responsibility for the murders of five trans people that occurred in our country,” Lovesio said.

In response to this attribution of the transfemicides, Spinetti recalled that there was "a string of trans women murdered and mutilated during 2011 and 2012" whose cases have not progressed in the Justice system: "There was never any suspect, there was nothing," she stated this Friday in dialogue with Informativo Sarandí.

At the moment, there is no connection between the murders Gonella claimed on his blog and the cases from ten years ago, but the incident has stirred the trans community, which is preparing for a new National Day of Reclaiming Trans Identities on September 23. “We have to be very cautious about this, because the justice system has to follow its procedures, it has to conduct its investigations and see if what they found on his blog is really true,” Spinetti told Telemundo.

Spinetti recalled that there were three murders in the Prado neighborhood, two in Roosevelt Park, and another in Aguada, all with very similar characteristics: transgender sex workers alone on a street corner in the early morning hours, executed with a shot to the back of the head, and with parts of their bodies mutilated. Even when the investigation began, the possibility of a serial killer was considered, among other leads.

The activist is urging the justice system to move forward with the unresolved cases and determine whether Gonella is connected to these trans femicides. She acknowledged that, given the ongoing and highly confidential nature of the investigation, accessing information will be difficult, but stressed the importance of the trans community having access to the data and of the justice system bringing the perpetrator to justice.