famous lgbtq people who have committed suicide

This report documents violence and discrimination against LGBT people in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras-collectively known as the Northern Triangle of Central America-and, in some cases, along the migration routes they take to seek asylum. The governments of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala should take meaningful steps to protect LGBT people from violence and discrimination. Meanwhile the US should reverse its harmful policies that limit protection for LGBT asylum seekers and allow more people like Carlos to seek safety. But the process was difficult because I was making my case from immigration detention. Most recently, Customs and Border Protection have used the pandemic as cover to turn away most asylum seekers. It was a very horrible experience.Ĭarlos arrived in the US just in time before the country closed its doors to most asylum seekers traveling north. In recent years, the US government has implemented a series of policies that restrict access to asylum and that narrowly interpret the refugee definition in ways that may exclude LGBT people. I saw how people died, they fell from trucks. We endured a lot of hunger, heat, sleeping on the floor, sleeping in the mountains. In late 2018, Carlos left Honduras and travelled through Guatemala and Mexico to seek asylum in the US. Because I think the police doesn’t support the LGBT community. My interaction with the police has been very different. Carlos himself had faced sexual harassment from the police. The police came to the hospital but Carlos chose not tell them what happened. In Honduras, as well as in Guatemala and El Salvador, LGBT people often face additional discrimination and sometimes violence from the very law enforcement agents charged with keeping them safe. We fought and then they shot me in the back. One day, I was walking in a dark area and four or five guys came to me and surrounded me, they told me that this day it was my turn. LGBT people in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala suffer discrimination and violence because of their sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. Carlos faced violence and threats. I decided to come to the United States to seek asylum. I left Honduras because I was being threatened. The truth is that I was about to lose my life. Among the asylum seekers affected by all these measures were LGBT people, returned to conditions almost identical to those they had fled. Measures included a program forcing asylum seekers to remain in Mexico for lengthy periods, an expedited asylum review process allowing for little or no contact with lawyers, an attempt to bar asylum seekers who transited through third countries before arriving at the US border, and a policy of transferring asylum seekers to Guatemala, where they did not have effective protection. The Covid-19 pandemic served as the pretext for the closure, but for years, the Trump administration had adopted increasingly severe measures aimed at preventing asylum seekers from ever reaching the United States and expelling them quickly if they did cross the border. In March 2020, the US government entirely closed its southern border to asylum seekers, leaving them to suffer persecution in their home countries or in Mexico.

Trump has been busy closing doors to asylum seekers, including LGBT people from Central America. Meanwhile, in the United States, the administration of Donald J. While this ruling represented a much needed first step toward accountability for anti-trans violence in El Salvador, hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT ) people there and in neighboring Honduras and Guatemala have continued. It was the first time anyone had ever been convicted for killing a transgender person in El Salvador.

The judge held that the evidence, including the vehicle’s GPS tracking, the location where Díaz was found, and Díaz’s autopsy report established the officers’ criminal responsibility. Prosecutors alleged that on January 31, 2019, the officers had forced her into the back of a pickup truck, beaten her, and thrown her from the moving vehicle. On July 27, 2020, a court in El Salvador convicted three police officers of killing Díaz. She made her way to the United States in 2017 to seek asylum, but after four months in immigration detention, in November 2017, she was deported to El Salvador and to her eventual death. Camila Díaz Córdova, a 29-year-old transgender woman, tried for years to escape the violence that had characterized her life in El Salvador.

Famous lgbtq people who have committed suicide