Just days after the Honduran president's hate speech, a trans activist from his party was murdered.
Erika Tatiana Martínez García owned a small business where she sold drinks and food and was also a member of the National Party to which the current Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández belongs.
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Erika Tatiana Martínez García, a 32-year-old transgender woman, was murdered on Sunday, September 26, in her home in Santa Rosa de Copán, western Honduras. After calling her several times, her mother went to the apartment and found her daughter dead. Tatiana is the fourth transgender woman murdered in Honduras so far in 2021.
Tatiana owned a small business where she sold drinks and food and was also a member of the National Party, to which the current Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández belongs.
Tatiana's transfemicide occurred ten days after President Hernández delivered an independence speech in which he railed against sexual diversity and women, which the country's LGBTIQ+ organizations considered a "hate speech".
Her mother wants justice for Tatiana, but she knows that most crimes go unpunished. “If justice isn’t done here, I know the Lord will. No one escapes God,” said Maria.
Tatiana was buried Monday afternoon by her family in Santa Rosa de Copán.
A nationalist LGBTIQ+ activist consulted by Presentes said that the statutes of the National Party prohibit addressing the issue of sexual diversity and abortion.
However, the interviewee added, many LGBT+ people who work in building the grassroots of the political organization receive daily recognition from local groups for their work in organizing community participation and party structures.
Meanwhile, the National Police are conducting the initial investigation into the case. Police spokesman Gregorio Cornejo Campos, speaking to Presentes, said that Tatiana died from three wounds, allegedly stab wounds, to the chest and neck.
“There is a lot of misinformation about the injuries and how the body was found, but the official information we have is that she was killed between Saturday night and early Sunday morning,” Campos told Presentes.
Hate crimes continue
Tatiana Martínez is among the 390 LGBTQ+ people violently killed in Honduras since the transfemicide of Vicky Hernández in 2009. Four transfemicides were reported in 2021 alone. The other three murders were: Vanessa Zúniga , found with her throat slit in Tela, on Honduras' Atlantic coast, on Sunday, March 27; Valery Pereira , shot to death in La Lima, northern Honduras, on May 14; and Karen , murdered in Tegucigalpa on May 24.
According to the Violent Deaths Observatory of the Cattrachas Lesbian Network, of the 17 cases this year, 10 are gay men, three are lesbian women and four are trans women.
The impunity rate for hate crimes against LGBTI+ people in Honduras is 91%, according to data from the same institution.
Without respect for their identity
The LGBTIQ+ organization Honduras Diversa made a public statement with an image of Tatiana that included a message asking for justice.
“Let us make our voices heard, our pain and anger, demanding a thorough investigation so that Tatiana’s murder does not add to the 91% impunity rate for hate crimes against LGBTI+ people in Honduras,” the statement reads.
The director of Honduras Diversa, Néstor Hernández, denounced that local and national media outlets used the name Tatiana uses in her public documents instead of her chosen name, since trans people do not have a gender identity law in Honduras.
The various associations Arcoíris and Muñecas de Arcoíris also made a public statement: “No more hate crimes against our sisters, no more apology for our collectives.”
Members of Honduras' main opposition party, Liberty and Refoundation (Libre), lamented the murder of Tatiana. “We will continue the fight for justice. Transphobia is a reality and more prevalent than ever,” wrote Kevin Ramos of Libre on his social media accounts.
Honduras owes a debt to transgender people
Tatiana should be one of the LGBTQ+ people benefiting from the landmark ruling in the case of trans activist Vicky Hernández. Instead, she becomes another victim of a hate crime.
Vicky Hernández was murdered during the curfew imposed by the coup in Honduras that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya and installed the de facto government of bus owner Roberto Micheletti.
For the murder of the activist, the State of Honduras was condemned on June 28, 2021 by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
However, Tatiana Martínez and all LGBTIQ+ people in Honduras have not yet benefited from the ruling in the case that obliges the country to create protocols and regulations to give gender identity to trans people.
The Honduran government has not complied with any of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights' mandates included in the Vicky case ruling. On the contrary, it is acting in the lead-up to the general elections to be held in November of this year.
“To do justice to Vicky, we must understand how the system fails trans women and how it can be improved,” wrote lawyers Angelita Baeyens and Kacey Mordecai of the U.S. organization Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights for the New York Times.
The legal team for the case also included Honduran lawyers Astrid Ramos and Nadia Mejía, from the Cattrachas Lesbian Network, based in the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, in the center of the country.
Cattrachas is led by Indyra Mendoza, who on September 14, 2021, was named along with trans activist Claudia Spellman (asylum seeker in the United States) among the 100 most influential people in the world, according to the American magazine Time .
Both LGBT women are the first Honduran people to receive this international recognition.
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