These Activists Want Justice for the Trans Women Murdered in Honduras

by NewNowNext Editors

15h ago

By Nico Lang and Kate Sosin

They buried her in Tela, the beachside town she called home. Her dress was black, the coffin white. The news of her death spread quickly.

Bessy Ferrera, 40, was shot to death in Comayagüela on July 7, one of three transgender women slain in a single week in Honduras. Her chosen sister, Rhianna Ferrera, got the message at 3:12am that Monday morning.

“’That can’t be possible,’” Rhianna tells NewNowNext, recalling her reaction upon learning the news. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Rhianna began frantically texting friends to find out what happened, but no one was responding. Later that day, she began calling activists in the local LGBTQ community and the police, but they didn’t have any more information. Finally, she called a nearby morgue and reluctantly gave them Bessy’s deadname; an attendant informed her that a body had been brought in under that name.

The news was hard to hear, to say the least. The two had known each other since they were teenagers. After transitioning, Rhianna and Bessy engaged in sex work together to survive as trans women in Honduras. Bessy was also an activist who advocated for better living conditions for people with HIV/AIDS.

According to Rhianna, they were among the first transgender women in their community to be out and visible. “We took care of each other,” Rhianna says. “We protected each other.”

Bessy’s tragic and sudden death was one of many blows for the LGBTQ community in Honduras in a very short amount of time—and more than a month later, those wounds still haven’t healed. Santi Carvajal, 32, a transgender TV host, and transgender stylist Antonia Laínez were also killed within days of each other.

Astrid Ramos, an attorney for the Honduras-based feminist and lesbian organization Lésbica Cattrachas, says such crimes against LGBTQ people are frequent because the government fails to fully investigate and prosecute them. In more than 90% of cases, the deaths of queer and trans people are barely investigated by police, meaning their killers will never be brought to justice.

“Trans women are seen as the lowest of the low,” Ramos tells NewNowNext, “and what happens to them is not important.”

What binds these women are the conditions to which LGBTQ Hondurans are subjected in a nation where they have few legal rights. Trans people cannot legally change their names or gender markers. Same-sex couples can’t adopt or marry. Although the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ruled in 2018 that Honduras is legally bound to recognize marriage equality, that recommendation has not been adopted.

LGBTQ Hondurans march in the streets to protest homophobia and transphobia in May 2018.

Unsurprisingly, the rate of violence against LGBTQ Hondurans is sky high. Between the years of 2010 and 2018, the global human rights advocacy group Amnesty International estimates more than 300 queer and transgender people were murdered in the country of 9 million, one of the highest such homicide rates in Latin America. If Honduras were the size of the United States, that figure would top 10,000 people.

Of the anti-LGBTQ crimes tracked in the country over the last decade, Ramos and Lésbica Cattrachas believe that only 28 have resulted in prosecutions.

The murder rates are especially high for transgender women who engage in sex work. While exact numbers are hard to come by, Amnesty International has called the coastal town of San Pedro Sula the “most dangerous city in the world” for sex workers.

“Those who murder sex workers believe they can literally treat these human beings as garbage to be disposed of,” the organization said, citing two drive-by mass shootings in month of December 2013 alone. “In less than a month, at least nine sex workers were murdered in the city of roughly 900,000 residents.”

Police in Honduras target LGBTQ sex workers in a 2007 nationwide crackdown on sex work.

Although Bessy Ferrera was not a resident of San Pedro Sula, the situation is similar to reports of her death. According to the Honduras-based human rights group Frontline Defenders, two unidentified men driving a car with tinted windows approached Ferrera on July 7 and repeatedly shot her, killing her almost instantly.

“During the attack, another coworker was injured by gunshots and taken to the Hospital Escuela Universitario, where she is currently receiving medical attention,” the group said. “Two men have been detained so far in relation to the attack.”

Advocates do not believe the killings of the three transgender women were connected because they occured in different parts of the country. Carvajal, for instance, was gunned down by strangers while walking in Puerto Cortés with friends, according to NBC News. Comayagüela, located in central Honduras, is a more than five-hour drive.

Advocates say a lack of legal recognition bleeds into daily life where queer people are targeted and lack recourse. Their lives—and even their deaths—are not treated with dignity. When Bessy Ferrera was murdered, she was misgendered and even mocked in newspaper coverage of her death.

Queer Hondurans at a protest circa May 2016.

Even weeks later, the LGBTQ community in Honduras remains shaken, scared of what happens next.

“In general, everyone in the trans community is afraid,” Ramos says. “They are afraid to go to the street. They don’t know what could happen to them if they go to work at night. … If someone can touch Bessy with impunity, what could happen to the ones [who] are not known?”

But as the government in Honduras continues to ignore the violence taking place in its streets, advocates are keeping Bessy’s memory alive by watching out for each other and advocating for the community’s survival.

According to Rhianna, her chosen sister frequently intervened to help protect other sex workers who were being targeted for violence. Ferrera’s funeral, held just hours after friends learned of her death, brought a flood of mourners, many of whom were women whose lives she fought to save.

One of the lives Bessy saved was her chosen sister. A number of years ago, three men jumped out and attempted to pull Rhianna into their vehicle, but she says that Bessy fought them off, risking her own life in the process.

“She was always there in whatever situation,” Rhianna says, “but she always ended up being the person who was attacked for defending the rest of us.”