Stepping Forward, with Caution: The Inter-American Court’s Approach to Transfemicide in Leonela Zelaya

Just some weeks in the past, the Inter-American Court docket of Human Rights delivered its long-awaited judgment in Leonela Zelaya and Different v Honduras, regarding Leonela Zelaya’s transfemicide.

Leonela Zelaya was born in Cortés, on Honduras’ northern coast. Estranged from her household and expelled from her residence, she moved to Tegucigalpa in her twenties, the place she engaged in intercourse work alongside Thalía Rodríguez, one other trans lady with whom she developed a sister-like bond. For nearly a decade, the 2 shared a single room in situations of utmost poverty. On the time of her killing in 2004, Leonela was illiterate and residing with HIV and tuberculosis. She was solely 34 years previous. In 2022, Thalía herself was additionally murdered.

Two options of what was at stake made this case unusually charged. First, since Vicky Hernández v Honduras (2021), the Court docket had not had an additional alternative to reaffirm that the Conference of Belém do Pará applies to violence towards trans ladies. Would the Court docket’s new composition protect a regular that had as soon as so fiercely divided the tribunal? Second, the Inter-American Fee on Human Rights and Leonela’s representatives pursued an bold litigation technique, urging the Court docket to attribute direct State duty for the transfemicide itself, a lot because it had achieved in Vicky Hernández. The problem, nevertheless, was that the factual configuration in Leonela Zelaya was not fully analogous, and the evidentiary file was far much less sturdy.

Though the judgment prompted six separate opinions, I argue that Leonela Zelaya in the end exhibits that the legacy of Vicky Hernández stays intact—and much more unified than in 2021. On this put up, I develop two central claims. First, the Court docket takes 4 vital steps that additional strengthen its jurisprudence on violence affecting LGBTIQ+ individuals: (i) the reaffirmation of the Conference of Belém do Pará’s protecting scope for trans ladies; (ii) a broader conception of reparations grounded in affective bonds; (iii) the popularity of gender id even after loss of life; and (iv) a strengthened intersectional method to understanding structural violence towards trans individuals. Second, the judgment provides a cautionary sign, clarifying the evidentiary shortcomings that can stop the Court docket from attributing State duty for violations of the suitable to life of ladies, together with trans ladies. Earlier than turning to those factors, I summarise the information.

The Details

Between 1998 and 2004, Leonela was detained by law enforcement officials on at the very least three events, reportedly for “drunkenness”, “vagrancy”, and “inflicting a public disturbance”. On 6 September 2004, 4 days after her final detention, Leonela and Thalía went out to work collectively, however solely Thalía returned residence. The following morning, Leonela’s physique was discovered on the street, her chest uncovered.

Preliminary experiences indicated that she had been killed with a bladed weapon through the evening. But she was improperly categorized as an “unknown” male, regardless of the authorities’ information of her id. The press coated the crime via stereotypical tropes, referring to her as “gay” and disclosing her identify assigned at delivery. No blood relations attended her funeral or burial. Solely the group of trans ladies round her did—together with her sister, Thalía.

The legal investigation, opened in 2004, yielded little progress. Worse nonetheless, the case file remained misplaced till 2018. In opposition to this backdrop and with out exhausting home treatments, Leonela’s representatives lodged the case earlier than the Inter-American Fee in 2012. In 2019, Honduran authorities reported that they’d recognized the perpetrator, however that he had died in 2007. They however reframed the crime as an tried theft somewhat than as a transfemicide. The case in the end reached the Court docket in 2024.

4 Steps Ahead

First, the judgment reaffirms that the Conference of Belém do Pará protects trans ladies (para. 65). This level, maybe the one which generated the best concern forward of the ruling, ensures that Inter-American jurisprudence stays on the forefront of worldwide safety towards violence and discrimination focusing on trans ladies.

The way in which by which the Court docket framed the operative a part of the judgment (a 4–3 vote), nevertheless, doesn’t make fully clear which of the seven judges embraced this view (para. 195). In actual fact, the Court docket reached a 6–1 majority in favour of making use of the Conference of Belém do Pará to violence towards trans ladies—enhancing upon the 5–2 majority on this very query in Vicky Hernández. This time, the only real dissent got here from Decide Borea, constant together with his scepticism in the direction of evolutive interpretation and non-textual methodological approaches, even in instances regarding cisgender ladies.

For these within the debate on the extension of the Conference of Belém do Pará to trans ladies, Decide Moreno’s concurring opinion is noteworthy. Moreno engages instantly with then Judges Odio-Benito and Vio-Grossi—the 2 who dissented in Vicky Hernández. Moreno’s opinion takes up the problem of responding explicitly to those objections and concludes that their arguments had been inadequate to exclude trans ladies from the treaty’s protecting scope. Quite the opposite, he argues, the evolutive vocation of worldwide human rights legislation renders such an exclusion untenable (paras. 10–12). In what might turn out to be a line of putting up with significance, he writes that “those that deny the safety afforded by [the Convention of Belém do Pará] to trans ladies bear the burden of convincing us that depriving them of such safety would higher safeguard their rights” (fn. 16).

Second, the judgment expands the notion of beneficiaries of reparations for breaches of the suitable to private integrity, recognising hurt suffered by those that don’t share a blood relationship with the sufferer (para. 136). The Court docket held that Thalía Rodríguez was herself a sufferer of a violation of private integrity:

“because of the struggling attributable to the unjustified delay and the shortage of heightened due diligence within the investigation into what occurred to Leonela Zelaya, who was her closest bond” (para. 138).

It is a important improvement, because it permits the Court docket to include notions of affective ties in future instances the place, as typically happens for LGBTIQ+ individuals, chosen household differs from organic household. The Court docket means that sufferer standing can’t be confined to conventional understandings of the household however as a substitute activates the presence of a real and efficient bond of affection and care. This transfer subtly recalibrates the Court docket’s reparations framework in the direction of a extra socially grounded understanding of hurt.

On the similar time, the reasoning supplied stays considerably slender, seemingly restricted to instances involving trans ladies who’re victims of deadly violence and lack blood relations. The Court docket held that:

 “the place no household ties exist […], in instances of the violent loss of life of trans ladies, members of the deceased’s assist networks could also be recognised as victims of a violation of their psychological or ethical integrity, supplied {that a} shut bond with the sufferer and an influence on their rights—similar to via efforts to acquire justice—could be established” (para. 136).

This raises vital questions concerning the judgment’s broader attain, together with whether or not the identical precept would apply past instances the place no blood relations survive. Right here, the Court docket additionally stopped in need of partaking extra instantly with the notion of “social” or chosen household as such.

Decide Pérez-Manrique’s separate opinion provides two vital contributions to the bulk opinion. First, he argues that Leonela and Thalía’s relationship was protected below Article 17 of the American Conference (safety of the household), since “not contemplating Thalía a sufferer would disregard the actual kinds that affective and relational life might take”, on condition that “typically bonds of friendship forge relationships of higher cohesion, unity, and assist, complemented by cohabitation or accompaniment” (para. 121). Second, he notes that failing to recognise this bond additionally denied Thalía’s proper to the reality and therefore her potential to pursue judicial avenues to make clear what occurred to her sister (paras. 126–127).

Third, the judgment clearly establishes that States have an obligation to respect trans individuals’ chosen names in autopsy investigations (para. 116). Honduran authorities opened a legal investigation with out referring to Leonela as such, regardless of understanding her gender id (para. 42; fns. 68, 168). In international locations with out gender id legal guidelines facilitating recognition of social identify and gender, authorities typically depend on birth-assigned markers even after loss of life. Right here, the Court docket consolidates an vital commonplace: even within the painful strategy of clarifying such crimes, States should respect the id of those that have suffered these excessive types of violence, a precept it had already foreshadowed in Vicky Hernández (paras. 122–124).

The Court docket additionally offers a foundation for its observe of naming instances involving trans victims not merely by surname however by their full chosen names—therefore Leonela Zelaya v Honduras, somewhat than merely Zelaya v Honduras (as additionally in Azul Rojas-Marín v Peru and Vicky Hernández v Honduras). This stands in marked distinction to the European Court docket of Human Rights’ observe of referring to trans candidates solely by initials, and extra lately even utilizing birth-assigned gender markers, regardless of their expressed needs on the contrary, as in T.H. v the Czech Republic (2025, para. 4).

Fourth, the judgment advances the Court docket’s use of intersectional instruments to grasp the discrimination and violence suffered by trans individuals (paras. 80–81). In Leonela Zelaya, the Court docket notes that her gender id as a trans lady, her function as a intercourse employee, her excessive poverty, her illiteracy, and her well being standing gave rise to a mixture of things that not solely operated concurrently however strengthened each other, deepening her exclusion, discrimination, and publicity to a number of types of violence.

But, as in different instances, this intersectional evaluation doesn’t absolutely translate into measures of non-repetition—a limitation lately highlighted by Mónica Arango-Olaya, Óscar Parra-Vera, and Antonio Franco-Franco. In Leonela Zelaya, the Court docket merely reiterates to Honduras the measures already ordered in Vicky Hernández, noting that they continue to be pending compliance (paras. 166–169). This was a missed alternative. Whereas the transfemicides of Leonela and Vicky share vital similarities, in addition they contain distinct layers that may have justified a extra tailor-made method. Maybe the Court docket, conscious of the measures of non-repetition nonetheless pending in Vicky Hernández, selected to not additional complicate the supervisory panorama for Honduras.

A Cautionary Sign

But Leonela Zelaya additionally lends itself to a extra sceptical studying—one which begins with the Court docket’s refusal to attribute direct State duty for the transfemicide itself (para. 96), because it had achieved in Vicky Hernández. As a substitute, the Court docket’s most vital findings of State duty arose from (i) the failure to analyze Leonela’s loss of life with heightened due diligence, and (ii) the three events on which she had been detained by the police below Articles 99 and 100 of the Legislation on Police and Social Coexistence, provisions contained in a piece tellingly entitled Vagancia y Pandillerismo (Vagrancy and Gang Exercise).

As regards the latter, the Court docket held that the obscure and open-ended language of Articles 99 and 100—referring to “vagrants”, “itinerant prostitutes”, and “pimps”—breached Articles 7 (private liberty) and 9 (precept of legality) of the American Conference (paras. 67–78). On that foundation, the police actions towards Leonela had been deemed illegal and arbitrary (para. 86). The Court docket supplied a cautious evaluation of those three episodes, concluding that they gave rise to a presumption of discrimination which Honduras had did not rebut, contemplating the indicia of unfavorable stereotyping primarily based on Leonela’s gender id and expression (para. 85).

The Court docket grounded this conclusion in a four-part construction: (i) Leonela’s heightened vulnerability, understood via an intersectional lens; (ii) the broader context of discrimination and violence towards trans ladies on the time of the detentions (drawing notably on the context present in Vicky Hernández); (iii) the absence of goal parts justifying Leonela’s three detentions; and (iv) the State’s personal admission on the listening to that Articles 99 and 100 of the Legislation on Police and Social Coexistence had been ambiguous and subsequently prone to abusive software by the authorities (para. 86).

It’s right here, nevertheless, that the Court docket’s true divisions grew to become seen. By a slender 4–3 majority, it held that Honduras ought to amend Articles 101 (“drunken individuals inflicting scandal”) and 142 (“offences towards modesty, good customs, and public morality”) of the identical legislation—provisions that had been equally obscure, however which had not actually been invoked in Leonela’s detentions (para. 170). This challenge didn’t come up with respect to Articles 99 and 100, which had already been struck down by Honduras’ personal Supreme Court docket in 2015 exactly on grounds of ambiguity. Judges López, Pérez-Goldberg, and Borea expressed disagreement in separate opinions, arguing that the Court docket erred in ordering legislative reform of provisions that, nevertheless clearly incompatible with the American Conference, had not been utilized within the case. What fractured the Court docket, then, was not the safety owed to trans ladies, however the extent to which the tribunal was prepared to increase its remedial attain past the particular provisions truly utilized in Leonela’s case.

The query, then, is why the Court docket declined to attribute direct State duty for Leonela’s loss of life. The Court docket was categorical in holding that, not like in Vicky Hernández, it was not attainable right here to ascertain the existence of indicia of the participation of State brokers, nor might the case be located in circumstances corresponding to these by which Vicky’s murder occurred (“throughout a curfew, a interval by which members of the safety forces had been the one actors current within the streets”) (fn. 140). Accordingly, though the Court docket accepted that Leonela’s killing happened towards a confirmed backdrop of violence towards trans ladies, that context alone was inadequate to floor attribution below the duty to respect the suitable to life. One thing extra was required: proof of “State acquiescence, tolerance, or collaboration” (para. 96). The fabric submitted by the Inter-American Fee and the representatives did not display these parts.

The Court docket additionally dismissed the opportunity of partaking oblique State duty via the obligation to ensure Leonela’s life, as a result of it had not been established that she confronted a “actual and instant” danger that was recognized—past the overall context—to the authorities (para. 100). Within the view of your complete bench, it was subsequently not cheap to require the State to have adopted preventive measures geared toward avoiding the materialisation of such a danger (paras. 101–102).

Furthermore, on the listening to earlier than the Court docket, the representatives launched professional testimony in search of to hyperlink Leonela’s loss of life to religiously inflected discourse by State officers on the time, calling for discrimination and violence towards LGBTIQ+ individuals extra broadly. On the listening to, the bench repeatedly questioned how such discourse might plausibly maintain the central declare of direct or oblique attribution. Reasonably than strengthening the case, this transfer underscored the Court docket’s insistence on a extra concrete evidentiary nexus. It is usually vital to recall that, within the representatives’ preliminary litigation technique, Thalía was anticipated to testify earlier than the Court docket. Nonetheless, she was murdered in 2022 earlier than the listening to might happen. Leonela’s representatives sought to substitute her testimony with that of one other proposed witness, however the Court docket declined this request. The listening to subsequently proceeded with none direct testimonial account from Leonela’s instant circle and as a substitute opened with professional proof that in the end framed the Court docket’s engagement with the case.

The Court docket attracts a demanding evidentiary boundary: structural violence and context matter, however they don’t, with out extra, substitute for proof of State involvement or particular information of danger. One might fairly wonder if the end result might need been completely different had the litigation centered completely on the obligation to ensure—that’s, on an oblique attribution of duty for Leonela’s loss of life. What is obvious, looking back, is that the choice to pursue the extra bold path of direct attribution—notably via the lens of non secular discourse—considerably formed the Court docket’s opposed conclusion.

Conclusion

Leonela Zelaya consolidates the Court docket’s rising protections for trans ladies, whereas providing a sobering reminder that evidentiary technique might show outcome-determinative.

At first look, the judgment might seem to mark a retreat from the bold attribution of duty embraced by the Court docket in Vicky Hernández. But to learn the judgment solely via that lens can be to overlook its deeper significance. Leonela Zelaya reaffirms—with higher unity than earlier than—that the Conference of Belém do Pará protects trans ladies.

What the judgment reveals shouldn’t be a Court docket abandoning its rising requirements, however somewhat one signalling the boundaries of how far context alone can carry findings of direct State duty within the absence of concrete evidentiary hyperlinks. For strategic litigation, the message is obvious: the Inter-American system continues to advance vital protections for trans ladies, however the path to State duty for transfemicide would require cautious consideration not solely to structural patterns of violence, but in addition to the evidentiary structure via which these patterns turn out to be judicially legible.

In the meantime, the Court docket will quickly face one other essential check. In Luiza Melinho v Brazil, it will likely be known as upon to deal with the obstacles encountered by a trans lady who was prevented from accessing gender-affirming surgical procedure, elevating central questions concerning the scope of State obligations below the suitable to well being. The end result of that case will additional reveal how firmly the Court docket is ready to entrench—and broaden—its rising requirements of safety for trans individuals throughout the Americas.

Word: This picture of Leonela and Thalía was ready by Cattrachas, the organisation in Honduras main the home and worldwide litigation of this case, and is used with its permission. It kinds a part of a broader marketing campaign geared toward elevating consciousness of the state of affairs of trans ladies in Honduras.