Amidst crisis of violence against transgender communities, Colombia debates bill that would foster safety and inclusion
Activists say attacks on the LGBTQ+ community are evidence reform is desperately needed
In recent months, Colombia has been reeling from a series of horrific and high-profile incidents against the trans community. But one of them in particular has had a devastating impact on public consciousness. Last April, an unnamed bystander recorded a video of a woman in Medellin who had been intentionally thrown into a river after her limbs were broken. In the recording, which quickly went viral on social media, she appears half-submerged in water, begging for help.
Despite the video showing the presence of several witnesses, no one helped Sara Millerey Gonzalez, a 32-year-old transgender woman from the municipality of Bello, on the outskirts of Medellín, the capital of Antioquia.
Instead, she drowned as someone recorded it happening.
At the time, leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro strongly denounced the killing, saying, “What happened in Bello is called fascism.”
The virality of the video and the public outcry which followed was unusual in a country where most media stories about violence against the trans community are brief, if they exist at all, and usually largely ignored, put intense pressure on local police to solve the crime, and bring the perpetrators to justice..
Using video surveillance imagery, both public and private, police captured one suspect immediately — Juan Camilo Muñoz, alias Teta — a member of the local “combo”, or street gang “El Mesa”, which in many ways act as the hyper-local government in the municipality.
A few weeks later, a second person was arrested, Juan David Echavarria, alias Chucky, who is part of the same criminal group.
In a country where violence against trans women all too often goes ignored, Sara had to be tortured, and her crime publicized to obtain justice.
That chance was not given to the more than 42 trans people murdered in 2024, and more than 20 so far this year, according to figures from the Caribe Afirmativo NGO, which has repeatedly denounced the harsh discrimination experienced by the LGBTQ+ population in Colombia, with a particular vulnerability of trans lives.
Colombia has a more than 90% impunity rate for homicide, a statistic that rises even higher among cases of transfemicides, murders of trans victims in which gender or identity is a primary motive.
In addition, according to Caribe Afirmativo, “other forms of symbolic or political violence…materialize in other spheres such as exclusion from political participation or marginalization in the communities where trans persons live,” are also systemic barriers to inclusion of members of the trans community in Colombian society.
Activists back new legislation: “These tragedies are preventable.”
Just a few months after Sara was assaulted and left to die, Nawar Jimenez, a well-known trans leader in the municipality of El Carmen, in the department of Bolivar, in the Colombian Caribbean, was murdered. Her killing deeply impacted the population of a town that has historically been plagued by violence. Nawar's role there had to do not only with her gender identity but also with her role in defending the rights of her community, in her struggle for peace in El Carmen — a struggle that often put her at odds with criminal armed groups in the region.
Both of these high-profile transphobic attacks, ending the lives of both Nawar and Sara, occurred while Colombia’s Congress had delayed and tabled a bill promoting trans rights. The bill, known as the “Integral Trans Law,” was designed to protect trans lives as well.
But the proposal, filed more than a year ago, has recently begun to attract attention again. If the bill passes Congress, where it is currently receiving renewed attention from lawmakers, it could enact a series of political, social, and symbolic measures that advocates say will stem growing violence against the trans community.
"Between January and October 2024, the officials recorded 258 cases of bias-based violence against women and transgender men and non-binary people,” stated Colombia’s Ombudsman's Office in a November report. The figures represent an increase of 29.6% compared to the previous year, when the Ombudsmen’s Office recorded 199 cases.
But even with new momentum thanks to public outcry over violence against trans communities, ultra-conservative and religious lobby groups have fought to delay and obstruct the bill.
Preliminary debate in Congress lasted over a year and made no progress, with debate being repeatedly blocked from reaching the floor.
On June 20, however, a few days before the end of the annual legislative period, the bill took its first step and cleared the first of the four total debates that Colombia requires before a Congressional vote is scheduled.
Legislation seeks to address long-running concerns among Trans communities
Activists describe the bill, which originally contained 50 articles, as “crucial” to trans community inclusiveness. Among the myriad proposals is including a broader legal definition of “transfemicide”, to Colombia’s legal system, which already considers violence motivated by gender as a hate crime. The new definition would include a broader range of gender identities, including non-binary persons; those who do not identify with any gender.
Other proposals include: a public relations campaign undertaken by the government to educate and increase the visibility of the LGBTQ+ population in the country, guarantees that members of those communities have access to healthcare both public and private, education on the rights of the LGBTQ+ youth community, and a series of other policies designed to increase security for the vulnerable population.
The bill, originally 50 articles long, faces strong opposition from some right-wing and religious sectors, however, especially the proposals to guarantee affirmative gender healthcare for trans people in their youth. Some of the guarantees of health care in the draft version have already been tossed aside by opposition lawmakers.
Some extreme right-wing politicians and lobbying groups have spread the false claim that if the “Integral Trans Law” is approved, children and adolescents will be forced to change their gender.
But as the bill is currently written, it would guarantee young people and children access to education and health services that guarantee a transition without serious impacts to their health, and without having to resort to paying out of pocket for “elective” medical procedures. Colombia’s Constitutional Court has already ruled that such procedures and education are a human right in the country *Ruling T-218 of 2022 and Ruling T-321 of 2023).
Proponents of the bill say that it is direly needed for a community that has faced not just violence, but also refusal by state and private health care systems. In Latin America, the average life expectancy of a trans person is only 35 years.
"We deserve to live a dignified life. We are survivors of violence"
And for elder members of the community who exceed the average, they often also face the additional burdens of poverty and exclusion from the communities in which they live.
Yolanda Torres, a 60-year-old transgender woman, says that the feat of surviving to the age of 35 comes with social and economic burdens. Torres is self-employed, a condition she says is in part because steady professional work as an employee is not easy to find. She has no pension, and little savings with which to survive retirement.
Even so, she told PWS she feels privileged. She says many of those in her peers who reached adulthood or advanced age made a living from sex work and cannot abandon it. “They have no other way to survive,” she said.
"The challenges for transgender people in Colombia begin in childhood and continue into old age. The lack of academic and work opportunities at a young age creates conditions that prevent them from living into old age with dignity," Caribe Afirmativo, the NGO that advocates for trans rights, told PWS.
The bill, if passed, would include a series of aids and incentives, including public pensions and potential job training programs, that proponents say would help trans women reach older ages with dignity and inclusion.
Torres is a strong proponent of the bill, and has attended rallies at the Plaza de Bolivar in Bogota, the seat of national government, to demand the passage of the new legislation.
Congress resumes its lawmaking session on July 20: Colombia's Independence Day. Torres hopes the Integral Trans Law be a priority.
"We deserve to live a dignified life. We are survivors of violence", she said, explaining that throughout her life she has seen the death of many of her companions who faced discrimination at the hands of their families, society and the State.
A coalition of NGOs and human rights groups has demanded a meeting before the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR) to address the ongoing and endemic violence against trans people in LATAM to evaluate what they say is a crisis among trans populations. The hearing is expected to take place in the coming weeks
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