Mexico City criminalizes transfemicide with sentences of up to 70 years

Mexico City’s legislature has passed a law that would impose sentences of up to 70 years in prison for anyone who kills a transgender person, making the city the second jurisdiction among Mexico’s 32 states to criminalize such acts. The decision came after years of campaigning by the ruling Morena party and was approved by a vote of 45 to 1. The small state of Nayarit was the first to adopt similar measures, imposing sentences of up to 60 years earlier this year.

Congresswoman Ana Francis Lopez described gender-motivated killings, known as transfemicides, as “an extreme manifestation of gender-based violence and discrimination.” The new law also allows friends of victims, as well as relatives, to identify and claim bodies, a significant step in a context where some families reject transgender relatives.

Approximately 95% of trans femicide cases went unpunished in Mexico in 2022, according to data from The Guardian. The passage of the Paola Buenrostro Law, named after a trans sex worker murdered by a client in 2016, was met with celebration by trans people and activists.

Kenya Cuevas, a friend of Paola Buenrostro and an activist, expressed her satisfaction with the new legislation: “For the first time, we can feel represented before the law, and violence against us actually carries a severe punishment. For the first time, I can feel some satisfaction, some peace, after all these long years of work.”