Another Trans Woman Murdered and Mutilated in Brazil

A young transgender woman was found in a dumpster in a rural part of São Paulo, Brazil, on Sept. 16th, according to Gay Star News. The 20-year-old woman, who investigators have not yet identified publicly, had been murdered and mutilated, her genitals and an ear removed. Police say they suspect she was a sex worker, who was taken to the location and murdered by a john.

Gay Star News reports that there has been a wave of crimes against trans people in São Paulo recently. In August, a 23 year old trans woman was murdered in Clementina and four more trans women were shot in the city of São José do Rio Preto (two died). Suspects have been arrested in both cases, one of them reportedly a former police officer. According to Grupo Gay da Bahia, an LGBT organization in Brazil, there were 266 murders of LGBT people in Brazil last year, six times more than in 2010.

One recent Grupo Gay da Bahia report, according to Gay Star News, concludes that Brazil has the highest rate of LGBT murders in the world; the risk of a gay man being murdered in Brazil is 800% higher than in the U.S.; and one Brazilian LGBT person was murdered every 33 hours in 2011.