Five years after his disappearance: Where is Tehuel?
Tehuel, the young trans man who left on March 11 for a job interview, remains missing. The case resulted in a landmark ruling in Latin America. It remains open, awaiting the trial of another suspect and an answer to the question: Where is Tehuel?.
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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina. On Thursday, March 11, 2021, Tehuel, a 21-year-old trans man, left the house in Alejandro Korn that he shared with his partner and her son to go to a job interview. He has been missing ever since. The judicial investigation brought one of the accused, Luis Ramos, to trial, and he was convicted as the perpetrator of the trans homicide. Another accused man and Ramos's neighbor, Oscar Montes, awaits the start date of another trial. Neither has revealed Tehuel's whereabouts or what happened to him. The search for Tehuel has become a rallying cry not only for his family and friends but also for the entire LGBT community.
The last person to see Tehuel alive was his sister, Verónica Alarcón. She had met him when the young man was on his way to the house of Luis Alberto Ramos, a 37-year-old man ( sentenced to life imprisonment ), who had offered him a job at a food event. Oscar Montes was also at Ramos's house. Once Tehuel went inside, he disappeared.
Ramos was tried by the Oral Criminal Court No. 2 of La Plata—comprised of judges Claudio Bernard, Silvia Hoerr, and Ramiro Fernández Lorenzo—in 2024. The ruling groundbreaking in recognizing trans homicide. Ramos was convicted of aggravated homicide motivated by hatred of gender identity and sexual orientation. He was held responsible for the crime, the disappearance of the body, and “the harm this caused to his loved ones.”
The sentence was confirmed by Chamber I of the Criminal Cassation Court of the Province of Buenos Aires, in charge of judges Daniel Carral and Ricardo Maidana, in July 2025.
Fight for justice
Ten blocks separate Mónica Galván's house from that of Norma Nahuelcura, Tehuel's mother. As soon as she learned they were looking for the boy, Mónica reached out to the family. Today she is a member of the Association of Family and Friends of Tehuel.
“Norma and I didn’t know each other. When I learned of Tehuel’s disappearance, I went to offer my help. That’s when we began to forge a path of struggle, of searching, and of demanding justice for Tehuel,” she tells Agencia Presentes . For her, today “ is a sad day. We are missing Tehuel. We don’t know where he is, we don’t know what they did with him . His mother continues to wait for him and continues to wonder where he is.”
The day after his disappearance, at the request of the young man's mother, Tehuel's partner went to file a missing person report. The police refused to take it. They were only able to do so on Saturday. The search began on Monday, when the first protests were already taking place in Alejandro Korn and San Vicente.
“There’s a four-day window between the disappearance and the report,” says Mónica. “No state agency was able to take action to process the girl’s report. Even though she was a minor, we were talking about a missing person, and no one searched for her at that time,” says Galván. For her, that period was crucial in concealing what happened. “It was the breeding ground the perpetrators used to get rid of Tehuel’s belongings, set fire to her clothes, her phone , and destroy the house. They emptied the house and put the mattresses and everything else in a place where they might find some trace of Tehuel,” she adds.
Why the Tehuel ruling remains important
For Mónica, the sentence against Ramos brought a measure of relief. The forcefulness of the ruling was also, at that moment, a message of justice in a context of escalating violence against sexual minorities.
“We were in the middle of the trial and we heard Mariano Cúneo Libarona, who was Minister of Justice at the time , say that the concept of a family consisted of a man and a woman. Or we heard Javier Milei attacking dissidents. It was a difficult time,” he says.
“We were able to secure a court that took a very gender-sensitive approach. It classified the case as a trans homicide and requested a life sentence for Luis Ramos. That ruling was upheld by the Court of Cassation, setting a historic precedent. There is no other ruling of this nature in the Americas . It is exemplary, and for us as a collective, it represents a way of finding an answer to so many questions.”
Galvan highlights the participation of the Pride and Struggle Front alongside those who succeeded in bringing the trial forward. In 2023, the court had set a trial date of 2027. “Norma couldn’t wait six years to find out about her son. And we also knew how the trial was going to end,” she adds.
Where is Tehuel?
Tehuel's disappearance fueled the demands—which had been building for years—for a Transgender Employment Quota Law. Three months after her disappearance, the law was passed in the National Congress. Following this, many trans people gained access to government jobs. However, the law is currently not being enforced, and many trans workers have been laid off since Milei's administration.
In addition to being a member of the Tehuel Family and Friends Association, Mónica Galván is a protective mother, a feminist activist, and she supports victims of child sexual abuse. She says that the date, besides being distressing, serves as a time for reflection.
“It’s necessary to see what’s happening to our lives. With this national government policy of obstructing us, discriminating against us, destroying us, and dismantling state agencies that were responsible for our care and the protection of our rights. They destroyed INADI (National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism), the Ministry of Women, which helped us so much in this cause. When they take away these material and human resources, our entire outlook becomes more bleak . On a day like today, when we continue to ask where Tehuel is, everything becomes grayer, sadder.”
The missing trial
In the case of Tehuel's disappearance, the oral trial against Oscar Montes, arrested along with Ramos for obstruction of justice, hindering the investigation, and perjury, is still pending. They were later charged with aggravated homicide motivated by hatred based on gender identity.
Montes' defense team has requested a jury trial, though a date has not yet been set. The legal team representing Tehuel's family is awaiting a response to their request to include members of the LGBT community on the jury.
Five years after his disappearance, Tehuel's face is on t-shirts, on posters, in marches so as not to forget him and to renew the demand for justice.
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