JUAREZ, Mexico (Border Report) — A transgender activist was stabbed to death this week, and members of the LGBT community here don’t think Mexican police are taking her death seriously.
Mireya Rodriguez Lemus, a member of the Union of Trans Women of Chihuahua, was murdered in the early hours of Wednesday inside her home near Chihuahua City.
Members of the group said Rodriguez had received threats but that authorities did not investigate them.
Group members on Thursday held a protest in front of the state police station in Juarez. There, they staged a play decrying violence against transgender individuals.
“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,” said Devora Alvarez, who leads a transgender group called Colectivo Fanny.
Group members say at least four transgender women have been murdered in Juarez this year, but that police are reluctant to investigate them as hate crimes. They say it’s easier for the police to say it was drug traffickers dressing up dead rivals as women than to admit that a hate crime was committed.
The demonstrators met with Deputy Attorney General Jorge Nava and gave him a letter demanding proper investigation of hate-crimes complaints and urging police officers from making disparaging comments against individuals based on gender preference.
The group Rodriguez belonged to participates in public forums on human and gender rights, sponsored a computer class and accompanied city authorities in April to disseminate health information to sex workers in Chihuahua, according to their Facebook page.
(Juarez freelance photojournalist Roberto Delgado contributed to this report)
