Transfemicide becomes a crime in a ‘watershed’ moment for Mexico City

When the trans sex worker Paola Buenrostro was killed by a client in Mexico City, her friend Kenya Cuevas grabbed the man to stop him fleeing and recorded the scene as police arrived amid sirens, screams and red and blue lights.

Despite the footage and witness testimonies, a judge considered there was insufficient evidence to hold the man and released him after 48 hours, since which time he has been on the run.

That night in 2016 turned Cuevas into an activist. And last week, after years of campaigning, Mexico City passed a law making transfemicide a crime with a prison sentence of up to 70 years – a “watershed” moment in one of Latin America’s deadliest countries for trans people.

“For the first time, we can feel represented before the law, and that violence against us really carries a severe punishment,” said Cuevas at a gathering on Sunday to recognise the victory. “For the first time, I can feel some satisfaction, some peace, after all these long years of work.”

The law, named in honour of Buenrostro, was passed almost unanimously in the state congress.

Mexico City is the second of the country’s 32 states to criminalise transfemicide. Earlier this year, Nayarit, a small state on the Pacific coast, introduced sentences of up to 60 years for the crime.

The law also makes it possible for a victim’s friends, not just relatives, to be involved in the bureaucracy of death and justice: identifying and claiming bodies, and driving the investigations.

This matters in a country where some families disown transgender relatives, meaning there is no one to force the state into action.

In 2022, more than 95% of homicides in Mexico went unpunished. For transfemicides, the figure is thought to be even higher.

In the case of Buenrostro, the initial investigation was negligent, and the suspect was released. Officials later offered more than £20,000 for information as to his whereabouts, to no effect.

Three years later, Ernestina Godoy, the attorney general of Mexico City, apologised for the actions of the authorities, making Buenrostro’s murder the first to be recognised and investigated as transfemicide.

Aranza Villegas, whose sister Viridiana, a trans woman, was murdered two years ago not far from Mexico City, was also at Sunday’s gathering. In that case, the murderer was sent to prison, but Villegas said it was a rare exception.

“I think it’s one in a hundred cases. It took a lot for me and my family to make it happen,” said Villegas. “If a trans woman doesn’t have a family like ours, nothing happens. And so when they die in such a cruel and tragic way, they’re forgotten, and they end up in a mass grave.”

Another way the law seeks to address impunity is by mandating that the attorney general’s office produce statistics and quarterly reports on crimes against people in the LGBTQ+ community, allowing for a more rigorous approach to identifying the patterns of such crimes.

About five million of Mexico’s 129 million inhabitants identify as LGBTQ+.

According to Letra Ese, a human rights group, 231 members of the LGBTQ+ community were murdered between 2021 and 2023, of whom two-thirds were transgender – though many murders are never reported.

This makes Mexico Latin America’s second-deadliest country for transgender people, after Brazil.

“Every time you step outside, you are in danger, you fear you won’t come back,” said Villegas. “I live with this fear: I’ve received death threats from people [associated with my sister’s murderer].”

But with the new law, Villegas says, she and other trans people will feel safer in Mexico City.

“It is a watershed moment in stopping these terrible murders, and we hope it extends to every state in Mexico,” said Villegas.

“We just want to be respected as transgender people, like any other human being,” added Villegas. “Respected—that’s all.”