On World Trans Day of Remembrance trans women human rights defenders continue to face severe risks
On World Trans Day of Remembrance, Front Line Defenders calls on the regional community to remember and honour the lives of trans defenders and their fight for the protection of human rights. The organisation calls for the full guarantee that they may carry out their work defending human rights, without fear of reprisals. In recent years, trans human rights defenders have been killed for their human rights work: demanding a dignified life, defending territory, promoting the rights of the LGBTI+ community, demanding sex workers rights, working towards access to health care for people with HIV and advocating for dignity, justice and reparation. These human rights defenders face multilayered risks due to their identity, their advocacy work and for being part of the LGBTI+ community.
Trans women defenders are exposed to high levels and deadly forms of violence. From 2016 to present, the Human Rights Defenders Memorial (HRD Memorial) has documented at least 52 transfeminicides of trans women defenders in Latin America, with Mexico, Colombia and Honduras leading with the highest number of incidents. Transfeminicides represent the most extreme form of violence against trans women defenders whose identities, bodies and battles for the protection of rights, are systematically dehumanised and erased.
This violence, which includes other simultaneous forms of violence, such as torture and sexual violence, does not occur in isolation: a significant number of these defenders have previously faced threats, harassment, enforced disappearance, discrimination, transphobia and a lack of adequate protection guarantees.
It is a pattern that confirms that these are not spontaneous attacks rather, violence based on gender prejudice, the delegitimisation of human rights work as well as a result of structural impunity. Such violence often goes under-reported and has a symbolic purpose of exclusion that seeks to prevent the defence and exercise of their human rights.
B essy Ferrera, a trans woman, human rights defender, member of the LGBTI+ Arcoíris Association, sex worker and promoter of HIV prevention programmes and laws for the protection of the LGBTI+ community, was murdered on 7 July 2019 in Honduras. Her transfeminicide is an example of how trans women defenders who articulate diverse struggles for sexual, labour and community rights are placed at a highly differential risk.
On 16 January 2022, Natalia Lane, a defender working for the rights of criminalised trans sex workers in Mexico, was subjected to an attempted transfeminicide in Mexico City. Her case reflects how impunity continues to be one of the biggest obstacles for trans women defenders in the region, where the lack of accountability allows violence to persist. It also shows how, in pursuing justice, many trans women defenders face re-victimisation due to the lack of institutional will to address violence exercised against them. This increases the vulnerability of trans women human rights defenders and the collectives, organisations and communities to which they belong.
On 27 October 2025, María Mendoza Lucas, a trans woman, dancer, land and indigenous peoples rights defender, who actively supported proceedings involving the Mazateco communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, was reported missing. Her human rights work challenged structures that threaten indigenous rights movements and deny rights of trans identities. Her disappearance highlights the differential risks faced by indigenous, trans women human rights defenders who support community proceedings against human rights violations resulting from extractive economies. The targetting of Maria Mendonza Lucas seeks to generate fear, dismantle the movement and limit access to justice for the indigenous communities in Oaxaca with whom she works and are an inspiration.
In addition to this violence, trans women defenders face the systematic denial of their identity, the absence of public policies that recognise them as people who have rights, and persistent discrimination as part of their daily lives. They also experience violence perpetuated because of their work, ethnicity, social class and/or immigration status. Still, trans women defenders continue to sustain community networks that are essential for their survival. In the face of the high levels of violence in the region, trans women human rights defenders create their own tools of care, resistance and justice, even when the justice systems fail them.
On this day, we remember, murdered trans women defenders, those who have survived extreme violence and, those who continue to build justice and equality from their territories and through their identities. The work of trans women defenders is vital: they act as a pillar that sustains community networks and advances the rights of LGBTI+ communities.
Front Line Defenders urgently calls on States in the region to fully guarantee the rights of trans women defenders, to adopt effective prevention and protection measures with through a differential, gender and territorial lens, and to implement guarantees of non-repetition with a restorative and non-punitive vision focused on the dignity and lives of trans people.
“Trans women in Latin America have learned to rebuild justice beyond the criminal justice system. We don't need more trans necropolitics, we deserve that same justice in life…”
Natalia Lane, Trans woman human rights defender and Sex worker
