Trans community in Mexico is in fear

The trans community in Mexico is in mourning after two women were brutally murdered within days of each other. Leslie Rocha was killed on Saturday (5 September) in Ciudad Juarez – a city located just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The killing came just days after a trans rights group staged a protest in the city, sparked by the killing of trans woman Mireya Rodriguez Lemus, who was found murdered in her home near Chihuahua City last week.

Trans woman ‘tortured to death’ in gruesome Mexico murder, family say.  Rocha’s aunt Leticia Sanchez told Reuters: “They’re torturing them, they’re killing them horribly.” “Justice must be had because they deserve respect. Why are they doing this?”

One anonymous Ciudad Juarez trans woman told Reuters people were “a little scared, a little terrified” to go out on the streets after the killing.

She said: “We don’t know what to do anymore because there are so many hate crimes against the trans population.”

Trans activist Deborah Alvarez added: “You can’t imagine what all us trans people have lived through to arrive here, for us still to see that we haven't been defended.”

Addressing the first murder, Alvarez had said previously: “We are not asking, we are demanding that this hate crime against our sister Mireya Rodriguez be solved. Enough is enough. We are citizens, too.”

At least four transgender women are believed to have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez so far this year, but activists say police are reluctant to treat the killings as hate crimes, and often attempt to pass them off as drug-related.

Police did not return a Reuters request for comment.

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