Surviving is not living: Trans women in judicial limbo in Coahuila

Grecia was stabbed in January inside a house in downtown Torreón. The fact that her investigation file is not moving forward, that her attacker remains at large, and that the authorities themselves ignored her complaint demonstrates that the barriers are not only legal but deeply structural.

A tingling sensation invaded his left arm, he felt warmth, but also an immense cold when he realized that his friend was inserting a knife into his body.

He received six stab wounds: five in the arm and one in the stomach.

“Why did you do that, Edy?” he managed to ask his attacker before running away.

Grecia Zúñiga Velazco, a 32-year-old trans woman, was attacked in early January inside a home in downtown Torreón. Her story didn't reach social media or make headlines, and she has navigated her path to justice practically alone, facing institutions that lack a gender perspective and accurate protocols for handling cases like hers.

Twenty-five days after the attack, when she was able to get out of bed, Grecia went to the Coahuila State Attorney General's Office to report the assault she had suffered. There, they suggested she go to the Center for Justice and Empowerment for Women in Torreón; she went, but there they told her her case wasn't going there, and that it would be best to return it to the Attorney General's Office.

"So, what am I? A man, a woman, or a Martian? Am I going to another planet? Or, 'When are they going to support me as a citizen?'" she recalls asking indignantly.

Grecia names what happened to her: it was an attempted transfemicide. A crime that, although it occurs, is not listed in the Coahuila Penal Code.

Currently, only Nayarit and Mexico City have made it an independent criminal offense. Although the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) have established that the murders of trans women must be investigated as femicide, the specific classification is not yet mandatory in the other 30 states.

In November 2022, Representative Lizbeth Ogazón (Morena) introduced a bill in the Coahuila State Congress to add Article 188 bis, with sentences ranging from 35 to 70 years, which would consider the murder of trans women (or people within the feminine spectrum) a hate crime. However, to date, it has not been approved.

This is urgent because, according to Grecia, violence against trans women occurs frequently, although, she said, it is invisible.

THE ATTACK

Zúñiga Velazco told this newspaper that her "friend" arrived at her house on January 1st. Although she wasn't expecting him, she welcomed him and asked him to wait for her while she got ready so they could go out partying.

After going to two bars, she told him she had to go out to work to "pay the rent." Like many trans women, Grecia engages in sex work, a common reality due to the structural exclusion they face.

But that morning, January 2nd, Grecia didn't go out on the streets. She was convinced by the man not to work. "He told me he would get me the money, and we went to his house."

Moments after arriving home, the attack occurred. "Thank God, I had the door open." For some reason, his friend would lock the door and hide the keys whenever they arrived home, but that wasn't the case that day.

“I opened the door and ran out. The pain was unbearable.”

Once in the area, she walked as best she could toward the Sanatorio Español, but she stopped when she thought about how she would pay for that private medical care, so, also as best she could, she went back the way she had come and knocked on the door of a neighbor of her attacker.

"I just remember saying, 'Help me, don't let me die.'" The woman held her on her lap until Grecia lost consciousness. She opened her eyes a few hours later at the Red Cross in Torreón.

“I woke up shocked, because in five minutes I was on the verge of death. I was desperate because my mother didn't know anything, so I removed the catheter and went out into the street, just like that, in a bathrobe. No one wanted to pick me up, and I thought I was going to die there and that since no one knew, what would end up happening was that they would throw me into a mass grave.”

In the end, a taxi driver took her home.

She didn't go to the Prosecutor's Office until January 27. "They started telling me my case wasn't for them, that there was a romantic relationship with my attacker. I told them no. They referred me to the Center for Justice and Empowerment for Women, but they wouldn't help me there either. I showed them my INE (National Institute of Statistics), which states I'm a woman, but they told me the case wasn't within their jurisdiction."

Finally, her complaint was filed. She was referred to the Public Prosecutor's Office and evaluated by a medical examiner. Almost five months after the incident, there has been no progress in her case.

Just last week, a friend alerted her that she had heard that her attacker had paid someone to “pick her up and break her legs.”

"I haven't worked since. As a sex worker, I feel very vulnerable to being put on a corner and attacked."

On June 10, she returned to the Prosecutor's Office with her friend to testify about the conversation she had overheard.

"The investigating officers didn't even know about my case. They told me I had to renew my complaint because they weren't aware of it."

Grecia hadn't hired a lawyer because she trusted both the prosecutor's office and the empowerment center to help her. "But I realized they weren't doing anything and that there was an omission."

Although she has a protective measure, which means having an emergency number she can call when she feels in danger, and she receives psychological care, she is overcome with uncertainty when she doesn't get a response.

"What are they waiting for? For my mother to arrive with a coffin at the door of the Prosecutor's Office so they'll listen to me," Grecia concluded.

What do the authorities say?

Although this newspaper went to the Center for Justice and Empowerment for Women to ask if there was a protocol to care for the trans female population in contexts of violence and also to find out how many had been channeled by the prosecutor's office during 2024 and so far in 2025, the director of the institution María Cristina Gómez Rivas behaved obliviously by saying that she was busy, and limited herself to saying that the care that women like Grecia received was the same as that received by all.

For his part, Carlos Rangel, head of the Laguna I Delegation of the Attorney General's Office of the State of Coahuila, reported for this report that any person who identifies as female has the right to receive adequate care, without distinction. However, he admitted that referral will depend on the type of assault and the legal analysis of the context.

"If the crime is committed due to gender, it goes to the Empowerment Center; if it's committed for any other external reason, we can handle it at the local police station," she explained.

Despite this, she emphasized that there should be no barrier between the two agencies: "The empowerment center and the prosecutor's office work as a team. The care will be provided. We must guarantee the human rights of all people and prioritize victims, regardless of their gender identity."

When asked how many cases of abused trans women had been referred to the empowerment center during 2024 and so far in 2025, Rangel said she did not have the data, nor did she know how many investigation files have been opened on this issue to date. She did mention that cases like those in Grecia do occur, albeit rarely, but they do occur.

In a response located by this newspaper through transparency, the Judiciary of the State of Coahuila reported that no investigation files for transfemicide were brought to court between 2021 and 2024.

Regarding sentences, it states that zero cases were resolved in 2021 and 2024, four in 2022, and one in 2023 for the femicide/transfemicide of trans women. Finally, it states that no cases of homicide, femicide, or transfemicide of trans women were recorded during that period.

Although transfemicide is not legally defined in Coahuila, Carlos Rangel argued that there are crimes that, because they are gender-motivated, are investigated under specialized protocols and carry aggravated penalties.

“The Attorney General's Office was created to protect everyone. The care must be comprehensive, effective, and humane. We are here to protect them and be very decisive in investigations. The message is very clear: in Coahuila, whoever does it, pays for it.”

In his view, part of that support is ensuring continuous care: “Right now we have 24/7 on-call staff, both at the district office and at the Empowerment Center. Here, there's no longer the issue of 'come in until Monday because it's Sunday' or 'we'll close at 4'. Here, we have 24-hour care.”

Rangel stated that the Attorney General's (Federico Fernández Montañez) instructions have been clear: prioritize citizen service and seek ways to advance the investigations. "Our obligation is to earn the public's trust and let them know that we are here to serve them."

Regarding the mechanisms for providing care, she clarified that gender-sensitive protocols are applied depending on the type of crime and the motivation: "It doesn't matter who the victim is; if the context of the crime is for one of the reasons considered gender-based, then the victim enters the Empowerment Center. If that reason doesn't legally exist, the victim is referred to another agency, but both are the Prosecutor's Office, and both must provide full attention."

However, despite institutional discourse that ensures undivided attention, cases like Greece's reveal a system that still falters when it comes to identities that fall outside the norm. The fact that her case file hasn't moved forward, that her attacker remains free, and that the authorities themselves ignored the complaint she filed in January demonstrates that the barriers are not only legal but deeply structural.

And so, in this judicial and institutional limbo, Greece awaits justice, even though, as she herself warned this newspaper, the wait could cost her her life.

A NATIONAL STRUGGLE

The lack of clear protocols, staff ignorance, and structural transphobia mean that trans women survive, rather than live, in a state of neglect and violence.

This is how Cassandra Manjarrez Villalobos, an activist and human rights defender, analyzed it in a Google Meet interview. She mentioned that this kind of helplessness is nothing new; she has faced it herself and has dedicated more than 40 years to denouncing it.

“I have a degree in Communication Sciences, studied drama and film directing, a master's degree in Gender Studies, and a doctorate in Peace Culture and Human Rights with a Gender Perspective. But, above all, I am a 56-year-old trans woman who has fought for the rights of other trans women for as long as I can remember.”

From Nayarit, where she resides, she has promoted historic legal reforms. She was one of the driving forces behind the Paola Buenrostro Law, an initiative that recognizes and classifies transfemicide as a hate crime.

“Paola's murder marked a turning point in Mexico. She was murdered before the eyes of her partner, Kenya Cuevas, who was also threatened by the same attacker. They arrested him… and then released him. That's when a heartbreaking struggle began: they wouldn't even release her body because she wasn't a blood relative. As if sisterhood weren't enough to demand dignity for our own.”

Cassandra recounted that, after recovering her friend's body, Kenya took the coffin and used it to block a main avenue in Mexico City.

It was in 2016 that Kenya Cuevas witnessed the transfemicide of Paola Buenrostro. A pivotal moment that led her to found the civil association Casa de las Muñecas Tiresias in 2018, named after Tiresias, the only character in Greek mythology who was both male and female in the same life. She also promoted the first shelter for trans women in Mexico, Casa Hogar "Paola Buenrostro," in 2019.

About Kenya, Cassandra shares, her story is painful: “She was expelled as a child, living on the streets, diagnosed with HIV at 13, a prisoner, a survivor… and yet, she became a human rights expert inside prison (where she spent 11 years falsely accused of drug trafficking), without even knowing how to read or write.”

Living on the margins has motivated both Kenya and Cassandra, through activism, to build and demand public policies that protect their rights as citizens. They have also demanded that transfemicide be an urgent issue for those who make laws in Mexico.

And it's such an invisible issue that there isn't even official or state data on these types of murders.

“There are no clear figures on transfemicides because not even forensic experts are trained to recognize trans identities. They write 'male' on the report, even if they find someone wearing women's clothing or who has undergone feminization surgery.”

In this sense, official data is practically nonexistent. Current records come from activists and collectives, reflecting a serious problem of institutional invisibility.

It is through them that we can learn, for example, that 2024 was the deadliest year in Mexico, with 57 transfemicides, that trans women represent more than 50 percent of the victims of LGBT+ hate crimes, and that Mexico is the country with the second most transfemicides worldwide, with 701 cases between 2008 and 2023.

In that sense, for Cassandra, it's not enough to make it visible; we must name it. "They kill us with more cruelty. A femicide is not the same as a transfemicide. Transphobia is added to misogyny, and that changes everything. It's essential that the crime be called what it is: the murder of a trans woman."

From the Tiresias Dolls' House, where she collaborates as national research coordinator alongside Kenya Cuevas, they promoted Recommendation 02 of the Mexico City Human Rights Commission in 2019, the first official document recognizing transfemicide as a distinct criminal offense.

Only Nayarit and Mexico City, as previously mentioned, have incorporated this term into their legislation. In the rest of the country, trans women continue to be treated as "men murdered in crimes of passion."

“We say: what is not named, does not exist. That's why it's so important to make it clear: transfemicide reflects all the accumulated violence we've experienced since childhood. Family rejection, school expulsion, job exclusion. Often, a knife isn't necessary: ​​society itself kills us.”

Without protocols, without perspective, and without real statistics, institutions continue to fail. "There are bodies that are never claimed, identities that are never acknowledged."

The solution, he says, isn't just legislation. It requires political will, mandatory training, decent health care units, correct language, and respectful treatment.

“We're not a whim. It's not cosmetic vanity. These are our lives. We want breasts, yes, because we're women. We want hormones, yes, because our bodies need them. And we want to live, like everyone else.”

In a country where being a woman already carries risks, being a trans woman means defying death every day. That's why Cassandra insists: we must talk about transfemicide. Name it, classify it, and, above all, not forget it.

“Perhaps one day we will be ashamed as a society. Just as we should be ashamed of mistreating a dog, we should also be ashamed of how we treat trans people. As if we weren't human. As if we didn't deserve justice, memory, or mourning.”

And to that demand could be added the cry of Grecia Zúñiga Velazco, the trans woman from Laguna who survived a transfemicide and who currently, without any guarantees or laws to protect her, waits from her unequal and invisible trench for her case to resonate and for justice to knock on her door.