On March 31, PBI-Honduras tweeted:
“Today, on #TransVisibilityDay, we accompany @arcoirisghn [the LGTB Association of Honduras] and @somoscdc_hn [the Centre for LGTBI Development and Cooperation] in a sit-in. 2 years ago, the IACHR [Inter-American Court of Human Rights] held the State of #Honduras responsible for the murder of trans defender Vicky Hernández and called for several reparation measures.”
Their Twitter thread adds:
“Several measures are still pending, such as the creation of a system to collect data on violence against the LGTBI+ community and the adoption of a procedure for the recognition of self-perceived gender identity.
In the country with the highest level of internal displacement in the region, where many people still live in situations of severe violence and are forced to leave or are forcibly displaced from their homes, the approval of the above-mentioned law, is of vital importance.”
In June 2021, The Guardian reported: “In a landmark ruling for transgender rights, the Honduras government has been found responsible for the 2009 murder of the trans woman and activist Vicky Hernández.”
“Hernández was killed on the first night of the June 2009 coup d’état, in which the Honduran military ousted President Manuel Zelaya.”
“Lawyers working on Hernández’s case argued that state agents actually committed the murder. …The court ruling, which ordered Honduras to restart its investigation into Hernández’s death, found ‘several indications of the participation of state agents.’”
“The court [also] ordered Honduras, which has the world’s highest rate of murders of trans people, to pay reparations to Hernández’s family and implement a sweeping range of measures designed to protect trans people, including anti-discrimination training for security forces and state collection of data on violence against LGBTQ+ people.”
“[And the IACHR] ruled that the state must allow people to alter their gender identity on identification documents and public records.”
The Trans Legal Mapping Report notes that in Honduras it’s “not possible” to change your name and that it’s “forbidden by law to make any modification of the sex assigned in the original birth certificate.”
The Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project has accompanied Arcoíris, the LGTB Association of Honduras, since July 2015.
Photo: Accompanying the International Day against Homophobia Transphobia and Biphobia march in Tegucigalpa, May 2019.
