Once again, 28 June marked International LGBTTTIQ+ Pride Day, a date to recall the protests that erupted in New York in 1969 after a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, considered a catalyst for the modern movement in defense of sex-gender diversity in the United States and the rest of the world. While it is a day to proudly celebrate achievements regarding LGBTTTIQ+ rights and visibility, it is also a day to recognize those who have made it possible and, above all, to continue denouncing the discourses and policies of hate and intolerance that day after day continue to affect the bodies and lives of those who transgress the hetero-cis-normative mandates and those who defend and accompany their right to do so.
Women defenders of sex-gender dissidences – those who defend the rights of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transvestite, transgender, transsexual, intersexual, queer, and other dissidences from patriarchal heteronormativity (LGBTTTIQ+) – work to guarantee equal rights and treatment for people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions that dissent from heterosexual and cisgender mandates. These defenders promote the creation of anti-discrimination laws and policies, marriage equality laws and gender identity laws that protect and recognize trans persons. They fight for visibility and fair positive representation of sexual diversity in communications media and decision-making spaces; they organize and promote community actions against discrimination, stigmatization and exclusion, offering support, protection and care services to LGBTTTIQ+ persons and their families.
Conducting these actions in the patriarchal and heavily conservative context of our countries exposes our sister defenders to numerous forms of violence. Through our Registry, we documented both attacks against women defenders who are sex-gender dissidents and who defend a broad range of human rights, as well as attacks against those who defend the rights of LGBTTTIQ+ persons, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. This means that women defenders are attacked both for their sexual orientation and gender identity, and for the rights they defend.
ATTACKS AGAINST WOMEN DEFENDERS WHO BELONG TO SEX-GENDER DISSIDENCES
Despite the challenge of having first-hand information about the sexual orientation and gender identity of all women defenders attacked, the data in our registry between 2020 and 2024 point to at least 258 of the sister defenders attacked as having dissident sexual orientations (lesbian, bisexual, pansexual and asexual), and 102 with gender expressions and identities that transgress the binary hegemony (transgender, queer, non-binary and gender fluid). It is important to note that several defenders share both (sexual orientation and gender identity or expression).
ATTACKS AGAINST WOMEN DEFENDERS OF THE RIGHTS OF LGBTTTIQ+ PEOPLE
Between 2020 and 2024, we documented 558 attacks against at least 94 women defenders and 20 organizations that defend the rights of LGBTTTIQ+ people and communities. Nevertheless, we note an underreporting of these attacks, since many attacks remain unreported because they are perceived as “less serious” due to a normalization of the violence that those who defend these rights experience on a daily basis.
The increase in attacks takes place within a regional and global context where political and economic leaders and groups reproduce homo-lesbo-transphobic discourses, gaining power and attention to promote discriminatory public policies, cut State budgets for equality measures and reinforce mechanisms for State repression.
Source: Data from the Mesoamerican Registry of Attacks against Women Defenders. The years 2020, 2021 and 2022 include data from Guatemala contributed by UDEFEGUA.
* Data from 2023 and 2024 do not include attacks in Guatemala.
TRANSFEMICIDES: THE MOST BRUTAL EXPRESSION OF HATRED AND EXCLUSION
The situation of risk for trans defenders is particularly alarming. Between 2020 and 2024, we registered 32 transfemicides of women defenders, accounting for nearly half (40%) of the 80 killings of women defenders registered in the region during the period. These 32 women defenders were killed for their double condition of being trans women and defending human rights.
Transfemicides are not isolated incidents; they are patriarchal hate crimes targeting people who subvert the mandates of the binary sex-gender and hetero-cis-normative system. They are also an irreparable culmination of a chain of structural violence including social exclusion, labor precariousness and lack of access to healthcare and education.
These crimes are characterized by the viciousness with which they are committed, as they are often accompanied by acts of torture, mutilation, sexual violence, forced nudity or haircuts, all with the aim of symbolically punishing the victims for their gender identity and expression. Furthermore, they are often preceded by threats that – even when reported – are dismissed by public authorities due to prevailing prejudices against trans women. Thus, trans women defenders experience a lack of protection measures, institutional revictimization and impunity.
FORMS OF VIOLENCE AND CRIMINALIZATION AGAINST WOMEN DEFENDERS OF LGBTTTIQ+ RIGHTS
Between 2020 and 2024, we documented multiple types of violence against women defenders of sex-gender diversity rights in Mesoamerica: 58 harassments; 45 threats – including death threats; and psychological (31), verbal (20), physical (16) and sexual (4) violence. We also documented attacks that seek to criminalize and erode the legitimacy of the women defenders through smear campaigns and ridiculing, arbitrary detentions and launches of legal proceedings.
In El Salvador, it is worth noting the registry of 109 digital attacks that send messages of hatred and ridicule against those who defend the rights of sex-gender dissidences. In Honduras, we registered 39 psychological, physical and verbal attacks for defending these rights. In Nicaragua, between 2018 and 2024, we documented the revoking of legal status of 45 organizations that defended the rights of LGBTTTIQ+ people. Meanwhile in Mexico, we saw the persistence of campaigns that question women defenders’ leadership and moral integrity through the dissemination of information regarding their sexual lives or false accusations of corruption or misuse of their organizations’ resources.
VIRAL HATRED: HATE DISCOURSES IN THE DIGITAL SPHERE
One in three attacks (34%) against women defenders of LGBTTTIQ+ rights were perpetrated digitally, amplifying fundamentalist, anti-rights, misogynist and transphobic discourses. Our registry reveals how hate speech is spread through social media, inciting violence or directly threatening women defenders’ lives, thus creating an environment of constant attacks that transcends the virtual world and affects their physical, emotional and social integrity.
ELEMENTS OF HATE AND DISCRIMINATION IN ATTACKS AGAINST LGBTTTIQ+ WOMEN DEFENDERS
Through our registry, we also identified the recurrence of specific forms of discrimination in attacks against women defenders belonging to sex-gender dissidences. These have various expressions, such as the denial of trans defenders’ gender identity, which usually appears as public authorities and communications media refusing to recognize these identities thus contributing to stigmatizing and making them invisible. In Nicaragua, for example, we documented how trans defenders held as political prisoners were deprived of their liberty in penitentiary centers for men; this not only violates the recognition of their identity but it also exposes them to higher levels of violence. In El Salvador, we registered the arbitrary detention of trans defenders in the context of the state of emergency imposed on the country since March 2022.
Women defenders of LGBTTTIQ+ rights face constant symbolic and verbal attacks, such as homo-lesbo-transphobic messages painted on the walls of their homes, spread through social media or shouted directly at them, with insults such as, “whore”, “lesbian”, “sex changed”, “faggot”, or “butch women dressed up as men”. This hatred is also expressed through fundamentalist discourses that deny or pathologize sexual and gender diversity, with statements like, “a man is a man, a woman is a woman”, “gender dysphoria is a very serious illness”, “the government should forbid all these slutty demonstrations”, “God created us as men and women and nothing else, all this is plain nonsense.” This discourse seeks not only to delegitimize their struggles, but also to deny their existence and the fundamental rights of those who lead them.
WHO ATTACKS LGBTTTIQ+ DEFENDERS?
Political and religious leaders use social media and other digital means to amplify anti-rights narratives and hate speech against sex-gender dissidences, especially against trans people. This has a profound impact on society in general, creating a climate of increased discrimination, misinformation and stigmatization that incites violence against LGBTTTIQ+ people.
Between 2020 and 2024, the main perpetrators of attacks on women defenders of sex-gender dissidences were unknown persons (44%), including unknown online users. We also found that 30% of the perpetrators of these attacks were linked to the State: public authorities and police officers who – instead of fulfilling their obligation to protect and guarantee human rights without discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity – are directly responsible for attacking those who defend LGBTTTIQ+ rights.
In 11% of attacks, the perpetrators were people close to the women defenders, such as partners and ex-partners, family members, people in the same organization or movement, and members of the community where they conduct their human rights defense work.