After working his shift at Eva Longoria's restaurant, Víctor Diego, a barista in "Beso," was meeting some friends but he never made it. As he was walking towards the Metro station on Hollywood Boulevard he was attacked by a group of men who left him with two fractured ribs, a shattered cheekbone and a broken jaw.
After learning the shocking and horrifying news of Eva Longoria's employee, who happened to be a transgender, Latin Times contacted Monica Trasandes, who works with GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) and asked about statistics of transgender Latinos living in the U.S..
What she told us was frightening. She said that according to the 2011 Hate Violence Report of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, the rate of murders motivated by hate against LGBT, increased 11 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. It went up from 27 to 30 murders, with 87 percent of those killed that belonged to a minority group and 40 percent that were transgender women, including many high profile cases of Latinas such as Gwen Araujo, Angie Zapata and Paulina Ibarra.
Ibarra was a 24-year-old transgender woman who was killed in Los Angeles, California in 2009.
Gwen Araujo, born Edward Araujo, Jr., was a 23-year-old pre-op trans woman who was murdered in Newark, California in 2002. She was killed by four men, two of whom she had allegedly been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering she was transsexual.
Araujo was undergoing hormone therapy at the time and going by the name of Gwen Amber Rose Araujo. She met Michael Magidson, José Merél, Jaron Nabors and Jason Cazares in the summer of 2002, and got intimate with Magidson and Merél.
In the fall of that same year, Gwen attended a party at a house rented by José Merél and his brother, Paul Merél. The other boys were also there, along with Paul's girlfriend, Nicole Brown, who later that night discovered Gwen was still a man and causing Magidson and José Merél to get violent, resulting in her death.
Angie Zapata's case was the first in the nation to get a conviction for a hate crime involving a transgender victim. She met Allen Andrade when she was 18 in 2008, and spent nearly three days together, during which they had a sexual encounter. Andrade reportedly knew Angie was transgender, but nonetheless began beating her, first with his fists and then with a fire extinguisher, until she was dead. He later proceeded to leave in Zapata's car with the murder weapon and other incriminating evidence. Andrade, 31, was arrested near his residence in Colorado.
Angie Zapata's story and murder were featured on Univision's "Aquí y Ahora" television show on November 1, 2009.
Monica Trasandes also shared some very important numbers with Latin Times. She informed us that according to a report by the Center for American Progress in 2012, 18 percent of transgender Latinos are unemployed.
The report also said that although 5-7 percent of young people belong to the LGBT community, they are almost 40 percent of the homeless youth and 26 percent are Hispanic. Among the homeless transgender, 22 percent is Latino.
Transgender Latinos have a poverty rate of 28 percent, which is twice compared to the transgender population in general, and almost five times more compared to the Latino population in general.
"This recent horrible attack against a trasgender Latina woman in L.A. proves how vulnerable is the transgender community due to persistent prejudices," said Trasendes to Latin Times. "We hope she has a fast recovery and that the people responsible for this are caught. The police reports have indentified the victim as Víctor Diego, and GLAAD is working with the media to make sure she is correctly identified as a transgender woman. If we find the preferred name by the victim, GLAAD will inform journalists the best way to refer to her."
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