MOROCELÍ, Honduras — A Transgender woman who the U.S. deported to Honduras earlier this year has been murdered.

Reportar sin Miedo, the Washington Blade’s media partner in Honduras, reported a group of “hooded subjects” shot Melissa Núñez in Morocelí, a municipality in El Paraíso department in eastern Honduras, on Tuesday night.

Initial reports indicate Núñez, 42, died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Indyra Mendoza, general coordinator of Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist network based in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, on Thursday confirmed to the Blade that Núñez asked for asylum in the U.S.

Mendoza said she did not know on what grounds Núñez asked for asylum, but Reportar sin Miedo reported she had lived in Miami and had more than 20,000 followers on TikTok. Núñez, according to Reportar sin Miedo, became “a strong activist” for LGBTQ+ and intersex rights while in the U.S.

Mendoza told the Blade that Núñez in December 2021 returned to Honduras after she traveled through Mexico and Guatemala. Núñez tried to return to the U.S., but Mendoza said American authorities deported her back to Honduras in July.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights last June issued a landmark ruling that found Honduras responsible for the murder of Vicky Hernández, a Trans sex worker with HIV who died in police custody hours after the 2009 coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya from power.

Zelaya’s wife, President Xiomara Castro, is among the Honduran officials who participated in a ceremony earlier this year during which the government publicly acknowledged it was responsible for Hernández’s murder. The admission the government reached with her family.

Violence and discrimination based on gender identity and expression nevertheless remains commonplace in Honduras. Vice President Kamala Harris is among the U.S. officials who have acknowledged anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-intersex violence are among the factors that prompt Hondurans and people from neighboring El Salvador and Honduras to leave their countries.

Camila Díaz Córdova, a Trans woman from El Salvador who the U.S. deported, was killed in San Salvador, the Salvadoran capital, in January 2019. A Salvadoran court convicted three police officers of Díaz’s murder and sentenced them to 20 years in prison.

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — The government of Honduras on Monday publicly acknowledged it is responsible for the 2009 murder of a Transgender activist.

Vicky Hernández was a Trans activist and sex worker with HIV who worked with Colectivo Unidad Color Rosa, an advocacy group that is based in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city.

Hernández’s body was found in a San Pedro Sula street on June 29, 2009, hours after the coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya from power. Hernández and two other Trans women the night before ran away from police officers who tried to arrest them because they were violating a curfew.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights last June issued a landmark ruling that found Honduras responsible for Hernández’s murder. The admission was part of the settlement.

Solicitor General Manuel Antonio Díaz Galeas and Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina García were among those who attended Monday’s ceremony that took place in front of Colectivo Unidad Color Rosa’s offices. President Xiomara Castro, who took office in January, participated virtually.

Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, which represented Hernández’s family alongside Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist human rights group that is based in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, also attended alongside Hernández’s mother, Rosa Hernández.

“We should love our children for who they are because they come from the womb,” said Rosa Hernández. “No one has a right to take a life.”

Kennedy noted the Honduran government “has taken the first steps by publicly acknowledging and taking responsibility and apologizing for murdering Vicky.”

Dona Rosa, you are such a beautiful soul. Thank you for trusting us with the fight for justice for your daughter. #JusticiaParaVicky pic.twitter.com/P44ANwbtNV

— Kerry Kennedy (@KerryKennedyRFK) May 9, 2022

Violence and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation remains pervasive in Honduras.

Thalía Rodríguez, a prominent Trans activist, was killed outside her Tegucigalpa home on Jan. 11. Cattrachas notes she and Hernández are two of the more than 400 LGBTQ+ people who have been killed in the Central American country since 2009.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered Honduras to pay reparations to Hernández’s family and enact laws that protect LGBTQ+ people from violence and discrimination. Kennedy in her statement noted Castro has pledged “to making these necessary reforms.”

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — An LGBTQ+ rights activist in El Salvador who once ran for a seat in the country’s Legislative Assembly has received death threats.

Erick Iván Ortiz — a member of the Nuestro Partido party who is the director of communications for the Salvadoran Federation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Persons — spoke about the threats during an April 20 press conference.

Ortiz said he received two phone calls on April 13.

The person who Ortiz said threatened him asked in the second phone call where “should we leave the body” and whether “we should bury it or dump it in the river.” The Salvadoran Federation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Persons and the Nuestro Partido’s leadership have both condemned the threats.

Ortiz would have been the first openly gay person elected to the Legislative Assembly if he had won his race last year. Ortiz in January joined the Global Equality Caucus, a network of elected officials around the world who fight for LGBTQ+ rights.

Editor’s note: The Los Angeles Blade on Monday published a Spanish version of this article.

GUATEMALA CITY — Lawmakers in Guatemala on Tuesday approved a bill that would formally ban same-sex marriage and define a family as a man and a woman who are raising children together.

The Guatemalan Congress by a 101-8 vote margin approved the “Law for the Protection of Life and the Family” under which a woman who has an abortion would face up to 10 years in prison. Media reports indicate 51 lawmakers did not attend the vote, which took place on International Women’s Day.

Visibles, a Guatemala City-based LGBTQ+ rights group, described the bill as “a law that promotes hate, violence, disqualification and dehumanization of those who dare to demand a more free and just world.”

“It is a regressive law that criminalizes girls, women and the LGBTIQ community through the exercise of their rights and freedoms,” said Visibles in a tweet.

El Decreto 18-2022 es una ley que promueve el odio, la violencia, la descalificación y la deshumanización de quienes se atreven a exigir un mundo más libre y justo. #NoALa5272 #NoALaLeyDelOdio pic.twitter.com/3V23SV0ZEs

— Visibles (@visibles_gt) March 9, 2022

“I never see marriage equality in Guatemala,” former Visibles Executive Director Daniel Villatoro told the Washington Blade on Friday.

Villatoro is currently a human rights fellow at Columbia University and the coordinator of the International Women’s Media Foundation’s LGBTQI+ and Women’s Rights Reporting Initiative in Latin America. Villatoro noted the bill would also codify the government’s official position that sexual education in the country’s schools should not promote “any sexuality that is not heterosexuality.”

“It is something broader,” Villatoro told the Blade. “It is a very heavy pathologization. It is anti-LGBT.”

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2018 issued a landmark ruling that recognizes same-sex marriage and transgender rights in the Western Hemisphere. Guatemala is among the countries in which the decision is legally binding.

Media reports indicate President Alejandro Giammattei has said he would veto the bill because it violates international treaties. Villatoro noted Giammattei plans to send the measure back to Congress for further review.

“The law from its inception is unconstitutional,” said Congressman Aldo Dávila, who is openly gay and living with HIV, on Thursday in a video he posted to social media.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — I was once again on assignment for the Washington Blade in Honduras from Feb. 6-11. I interviewed Víctor Grajeda, the first openly gay man elected to the Honduran Congress, and met Indyra Mendoza, founder of Cattrachas, a lesbian human rights group, at her office in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital and largest city. I visited Dunia Orellana and Amílcar Cárcamo of Reportar sin Miedo, the Blade’s media partner in Honduras. I also had more than my share of “granitas de café,” or “iced coffees,” while in the country.

Honduras is one of the most violent and corrupt countries in the Americas.

The situation on the ground last July when I was on assignment in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city, and in the cities of Tela and La Ceiba on Honduras’ Caribbean coast, was tense.

The trip took place against the backdrop of growing concerns over what would happen if the results of the presidential election that was scheduled to take place less than five months later were disputed. A pandemic-related curfew that was in place also added to this sense of uneasiness.

The situation on the ground on this most recent trip to Honduras felt slightly different.

President Xiomara Castro, a member of the leftist Free Party whose husband, former President Manuel Zelaya was removed from office in a 2009 coup, took office on Jan. 27.

Castro defeated Nasry Asfura, a member of now former President Juan Orlando Hernández’s National Party who is Tegucigalpa’s former mayor, in the presidential election’s first round that took place last Nov. 28. Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power are among the foreign dignitaries who attended Castro’s inauguration that took place at Honduras’ national stadium in Tegucigalpa. Grajeda and our Reportar sin Miedo colleagues were also on hand to witness the moment when Honduras’ first female president took office.

“I was there for this historic moment,” said Erick Martínez, a long-time activist who ran for Congress in 2017, during an interview in San Pedro Sula on Feb. 8. “I was crying in this full stadium; crying with pride; with joy; with sadness for the people who were not there.”

Martínez specifically mentioned Walter Tróchez and Erick Martínez Ávila, two Honduran LGBTQ activists who were murdered in December 2009 and May 2012 respectively. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a landmark ruling it issued last June said the Honduran state was responsible for the murder of Vicky Hernández, a transgender activist who was killed in San Pedro Sula hours after the 2009 coup.

Juan Orlando Hernández was president of Congress from January 2010 to June 2013. He became the country’s head of state in 2014.

The Supreme Electoral Tribunal declared Hernández the winner of the 2017 presidential election, despite widespread irregularities and criticism that his decision to run for a second term violated the Honduran constitution. The disputed election results sparked widespread protests across the country that left dozens of people dead.

Juan Orlando Hernández did not attend Castro’s inauguration.

I was driving to interview Grajeda in San Pedro Sula when I read a press release from Secretary of State Antony Blinken that announced the U.S. had sanctioned Juan Orlando Hernández for corruption. 

Honduran authorities on Feb. 15 arrested Juan Orlando Hernández at his Tegucigalpa home after the U.S. asked for his extradition on drug and weapons charges. Federal prosecutors allege Juan Orlando Hernández used drug trafficking to fund his political campaigns.

Juan Orlando Hernández’s brother, former Congressman Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, is serving a life sentence in the U.S. after a federal jury convicted him of trafficking tons of cocaine into the country. I was driving from San Pedro Sula to Tegucigalpa on Feb. 8 when I heard on the radio that a federal judge in New York had sentenced Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez, a drug trafficker who allegedly bribed Juan Orlando Hernández and other Honduran government officials, to life in prison.

Honduras was certainly a “narco state” when Juan Orlando Hernández was president.

Castro, for her part, has publicly supported marriage equality and backs legal recognition of trans Hondurans and what Grajeda described as “safe spaces” for LGBTQ people. 

Six gay men and a trans man have been reported killed in Honduras since Castro took office. Police continue to face criticism over the investigation into the Jan. 11 murder of Thalía Rodríguez, a prominent trans activist who was shot in front of her Tegucigalpa home. Jerlín, a trans man who I interviewed last July in La Ceiba, fled the country weeks before Castro took office and plans to ask for asylum in the U.S. 

None of the sources with whom I spoke in Honduras are naive to the many challenges that Castro and her government face. They are also waiting to see whether the new government in Tegucigalpa will have a tangible impact on the lives of LGBTQ Hondurans who continue to face rampant violence and discrimination. 

We shall see.   

EAGLE PASS, Texas — A Transgender man who fled Honduras has been able to enter the U.S.

Jerlín, who the Washington Blade interviewed last summer in the Honduran city of La Ceiba, on Saturday entered the U.S. in Eagle Pass, Texas, after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services granted his request for humanitarian parole that allows him to temporarily remain in the U.S.

Jerlín told the Blade in a previous interview that he and a small group of migrants left Honduras on Jan. 14.

He reached Piedras Negras, a Mexican border city that is across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass on Jan. 24. Jerlín sought to enter the U.S., but U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers sent him back to Mexico under Title 42, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention rule that has closed the Southern border to most asylum seekers and migrants because of the pandemic.

Jerlín’s lawyer, Abdiel Echevarría-Caban, submitted the humanitarian parole application on his behalf.

Echevarría-Caban told the Blade that Jerlín plans to ask for asylum in the U.S. based on persecution due to his gender identity. Jerlín, whose legal name does not correspond with his gender identity, will pursue his case from Houston where his mother and sister live.

Violence and discrimination based on gender identity remains commonplace in Honduras.

Thalía Rodríguez, a prominent Trans activist, was murdered outside her home in Tegucigalpa, the country’s capital, on Jan. 11.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights last June issued a landmark ruling that found the Honduran state responsible for the murder of Vicky Hernández, a Trans activist who was killed in San Pedro Sula, the country’s second largest city, after the 2009 coup that ousted then-President Manuel Zelaya. (His wife, Xiomara Castro, took office as Honduras’ first female president on Jan. 26.) Cattrachas, a lesbian feminist human rights group in Tegucigalpa, notes Hernández and Rodríguez are two of the more than 400 LGBTQ+ people who have been reported killed in Honduras since 2009.