A wave of anti-trans violence has left Puerto Rico reeling, and civil rights groups are sounding the alarm about a catastrophic trend made worse by police and the media.
The latest victim is Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín, who was reportedly found dead on January 9 after sustaining multiple fatal gunshot wounds. Damián’s body was discovered without identification in the roadway outside of the San Juan suburb of Trujillo Alto when his lifeless body was struck by a driver. He was initially misidentified as a woman before his family corrected false reports from law enforcement officials and local media outlets.
Damián’s death follows a string of six anti-trans homicides over the last year in the United States territory. The others are Michelle Ramos Vargas, Alexa Negron Luciano, Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos, Layla Pelaez Sánchez, Yampi Méndez Arocho, and Penélope Díaz Ramírez.
On Thursday, the national LGBTQ+ group GLAAD joined local queer organizations like Puerto Rico Para Tod@s in calling on the press and local police to devote more resources to investigating the recent murders.
“The violence claiming trans people’s lives in Puerto Rico is disturbing and heartbreaking,” said GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis in a statement. “Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. … GLAAD stands with Puerto Rican LGBTQ advocacy groups in calling for hate crimes investigations into the deaths of Samuel, Alexa, Michelle, Serena, Layla, Yampi, and Penélope.”
The organization’s statement follows recent comments from longtime Puerto Rican LGBTQ+ activist Pedro Julio Serrano calling on the Puerto Rican government to “declare a state of emergency… to stop this wave of transphobic, misogynist and homophobic crimes.”
“The police and the mainstream media continue to misgender trans victims,” the Puerto Rico Para Tod@s founder said in recent comments shared with them. “Enough is enough.”
Two men, Juan Carlos Pagán Bonilla and Sean Díaz de León, were been charged in the murder of Velázquez and Pelaez last year, but the other deaths have not been solved. The Department of Justice reportedly charged the alleged assailants under the island’s hate crimes laws, which the LGBTQ+ news outlet Metro Weekly previously noted “are rarely enforced by local authorities, who may allow their own biases to color their judgment.”
Last year the Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vázquez, added that the killing of Negron, a homeless trans woman killed just hours after a restaurant patron in the northern town of Toa Baja complained about her using the women’s bathroom, was a hate crime and would be treated as such. But since then, it’s unclear just how active the government has been in addressing the wave of violence. A few months after her statement, Vázquez signed a new civil code omitting protections for queer and trans people, which Serrano warned could allow the territory to further erode LGBTQ+ rights.
Puerto Rico is predominantly Roman Catholic, and LGBTQ+ citizens have no protection from discrimination in employment or public accommodations. The territory also lacks anti-bullying programs, comprehensive sexual education, and laws banning anti-LGBTQ+ conversion therapy.
Despite the lack of government involvement, the murders have attracted national attention. Last year Lambda Legal called for an investigation into Negron’s murder, and the Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny wore a shirt that read, “They killed Alexa, not a man in a skirt” on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in an attempt to draw attention to her case. Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted that she was “heartsick for Alexa and her loved ones” and “we must use every tool we have to end it and protect trans women of color.”
Overall, Valentín is the second transgender person killed in the U.S. in 2021, with 28-year-old Tyianna Alexander shot and killed in Chicago just days before his death. Alexander was remembered by friends as someone who “loved to dance, had a great sense of humor, enjoyed life when she could, and just wanted to be able to ‘vibe and thrive,” as them. previously reported. The motive for the killing is not yet known.
Alexander’s death follows the murder of fellow Chicagoan Courtney “Eshay” Key just weeks earlier. Killed on Christmas Day, Key was one of 44 known trans murder victims in the U.S. in 2020, the highest number on record.
“Both of the ladies were youth here in Chicago and high spirit, trying to figure life out as trans women,” said LaSaia Wade, executive director of the Chicago-based advocacy group Brave Space Alliance, in comments shared with them. “Losing these to babies hit us hard, especially while we are building community with each other.”
Over 200 trans people have been killed in the U.S. since 2013, with a recent report from the Human Rights Campaign finding that Black trans women are disproportionately likely to be affected. According to HRC, 85% of overall victims are estimated to have been people of color, and more than three-quarters (76%) were age 35 or under, seven of whom were minors.
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