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Scenes of Peruvian Trans Activism

I came to Peru for a research stay focused on trans activism as part of my doctoral dissertation, which I am currently developing at the HCIAS with a scholarship of the Heinrich-Böll Stiftung on the topic of political coalitions and memory endeavours within trans rights movements. During my fieldwork, I made contacts that allowed me to approach activist organizations and carry out in-depth conversations with their members.  I have conducted 22 interviews to date, of which 15 were in-person meetings in the cities of Lima and Trujillo (La Libertad Region). Most interviewed individuals (18) identify as trans women. Each conversation evokes sudden closeness and also moments of abysmal distance. In each space I shared with the interviewees, reality converges and intertwines. Trans power dominates narrativity and activists often depict vivid images of violence that resonate after the interviews.

Between 2020 and 2023, the murders of 30 transgender women were documented in Peru (Observatorio de Derechos Humanos TLGBI, 2024). The degree of hatred with which they were assassinated is shocking. The murder of Rubí Ferrer in 2023 was even filmed and later shared as a threat to other sex workers who refused extortion quotas in downtown Lima (Observatorio de Derechos Humanos TLGBI, 2024). Recent killings such as those of Juliza Velarde (2026, Lima) or Marcia Paucara Cora (2025, Tacna Region) showcase a continued climate of vulnerability for trans people in Peru. This situation is compounded by the parliamentary empowerment of a transphobic agenda. Not only does the Peruvian Congress stall a 2016 Gender Identity Bill (Paredes, 2022), but also actively seeks to deepen discrimination against the trans population. Evidence of such ultraconservative empowerment is Law No. 323315, which dictates that persons can only use a public bathroom that matches their biological sex.

In the face of a such a challenging scenario, it is hard to withhold an affective bias and not admire the perseverance of trans activists in Peru. It alienates me to think about how to tackle “fieldwork”, a “methodological strategy,” or “collected data”. The rigor of ethnographic notes could easily be surpassed by local metaphors. A dissident landscape flows through these urban traces, and I know that when I leave, it will not be the same. Trans activism is relentless movement, choral stories that defy categorization in a polymorphous city. Something will always escape my ability to register it sensibly.

Photo Credit: Blas de la Jara Plaza

Despite perceiving limitations, interviews often lead to subsequent experiences and opportunities in which I can better deduce collective patterns and recognize an individual desire to approach organizational efforts. Witnessing activists in the public sphere has allowed me to sense how they navigate the city and deal with neighborhood fabrics. I spoke with my first interviewee in the Los Olivos district of northern Lima. Alejandra Fang is the current director of Casa Trans Zuleymi, a trans-feminist initiative that has managed spaces in northern and downtown Lima.

After our interview, Alejandra walks confidently down the avenue at night; accompanying my husband and me to take a bus to Naranjal Station. As our bus pulls away, I turn over my shoulder and watch her cloaked in street darkness. She carries herself with an air of mythical silence, moving forward with serene sovereignty.  It is not difficult to imagine how this confidence helps to strengthen ties with long-standing feminist organizations and coordinate meetings with international cooperation agencies. Among others, Casa Trans Zuleymi maintains contact with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and the Global Fund.

At the end of the interview, Alejandra Fang invited us to her group’s end-of-year event that took place in the Collique area, Comas district of northern Lima. I attended alone and had to take three buses to get there. When I boarded the first bus in the affluent Miraflores district, I knew I was in for a long journey. As the trip progressed, green areas gradually faded away while unfinished buildings became the continuous horizon. When I got off the third bus on Revolución Avenue and walked toward the event location, I struggled to find the venue. Finally, I ran into a banner with a trans flag and the label Casa Trans Zuleymi / Respuesta colectiva de Personas Trans (Zuleymi Trans House / Collective Response of Trans People) hanging on the wall of a three-story brick building. The event brought together at least fifteen trans women who gathered in the parking lot behind the beauty parlor of Yenny Franchesco, treasurer of Casa Trans Zuleymi.

Photo Credit: Blas de la Jara Plaza

The depth of community in a predominantly trans space goes beyond conceptual frameworks. For a moment, the city environment seemed to transform and offer glimpses of possible futures in northern Lima. Another language and codes of interaction drove the course of time. Being the “cis” minority is something that shakes you up. Your cisgender self is the one that stands out while years of collective cohesion come together before you, behind Yenny’s beauty parlor on Revolución Avenue.

I think it is also important to map the interaction of trans organizations with other activist groups in civil society. Namely, to regard points of confluence in a country where the political class represents the broad common problem. This requires highlighting that trans organizations are not isolated groups. They cooperate with other activists and support broader citizen demands. Beyond gestures of solidarity, there is a shared interest in opposing indiscriminate police repression, criminality, and generalized impunity. Leaders of trans women’s organization Féminas represent this conversation in the public space of protest.

Leyla Huerta, director of Féminas, is one of the main drivers of a community house in the district of Pueblo Libre (Lima). In “Casa Féminas”, she welcomes media and researchers, manages resources, and delegates responsibilities to other activists. On the day I interviewed her, she and her colleagues were preparing protest materials to take part in a demonstration, which I also later attended.

Hours after our conversation, I witnessed how Leyla Huerta took the megaphone before protesters gathered in front of Lima’s Palace of Justice; the main Peruvian judiciary building, in downtown Lima. They were demanding justice for the 50 murders committed between December 2022 and March 2023 during Dina Boluarte’s administration (Vásquez, 2026). During that period, law enforcement carried out massacres in response to citizen protests. As reported by Human Rights Watch (2023), state agents used firearms and live ammo to suppress protests. Additionally, with the growing influence of military and police commanders in the highest decision-making echelons, not only recent but also older killings go unpunished. For instance, Law No. 32107, which was published on August 9, 2024, requires that murders committed during the Internal Armed Conflict (1980-2000) are exempted from criminal classification as “war crimes” or “crimes against humanity.”

Video Credit: Mateo Abedul

Few demonstrators were present at the protest on January 8, 2026 in front of Peru’s Palace of Justice. A group of people have carried images of victims of state repression and, as a scenic background, stuck them on a waterless fountain behind the area where the speeches were given. Faced with the vigor of authoritarianism, the cries of protesters quickly dissolve and settle into some unnoticed crevice. Nevertheless, Leyla Huerta stands tall like a battle banner with its own gravitational force. She was awaited by eight trans women who applaud her proclaims and film her. For more than 10 years, Leyla has built a solid matriarchal scaffolding.

A workshop on Gender Theory and Activism

Another significant episode in downtown Lima was when Danna Ortiz, coordinator of the Association of Travestis, Transsexuals, and Transgender People of Peru (ATTTPE), invited me to facilitate a workshop at her organization’s community center. Under the title “Gender Theory and Activism,” I designed a thematic journey that could lead to what I thought an older trans woman from Peru could relate to. The class began with the transition of a gender notion from the medical gaze to a sociocultural understanding, then outlined the contributions of Western feminist authors (Gayle Rubin, Monique Wittig, Judith Butler) and moved on to decolonial South American authors (María Galindo and Lohana Berkins). The main idea was to address local knowledge and opening the floor so participants expressed their own ideas about activism practices.

Danna Ortiz told me that I should prepare the workshop in accessible terms by focusing on participatory approaches that could reach a broad audience. Based on Danna’s recommendation, I prepared three hypothetical cases for participants to share their thoughts: a young trans woman from Norway who said that trans rights had already been achieved, a cisgender gay man from Peru who did not want to prioritize trans demands in the pride march, and a Peruvian congresswoman who was an ally of the trans population but voted against indigenous populations.

Photo Credit: Alonso Valdivia Galván

Besides the specific responses to the assigned tasks, I appreciated having moments of quiet to listen to the participants’ conversations. No matter how often the term “safe space” is used, experiencing it leaves you with a conviction: It is pivotal to sustain a physical space led by trans people for trans people. Despite the lesson that the ATTTPE workshop left me, I felt inadequate talking about the oppression of the cisgender mandate to a group that has experienced it with greater violence than I have. I could not help to assume a priori an internalized reflection that goes beyond theoretical articulation.

Considering these experiences from my research stay, something about the word “resistance” seems insufficient when I think about the organized trans individuals I have met. I feel that it detracts from the complexity of it all and obscures moments of internal conflict and also bursts of laughter. Not everything is functional to “resistance.” There is also a lot of affection, sharp recognition of differences within sexual diversities, and an organizational capacity that has been accumulated over the years. These trans activists know the city better than anyone else. A city where warm leaderships stand and allow a familiar pace.

References

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Blas de la Jara Plaza is a doctoral researcher at the HCIAS, a member of the research group “Communications and Society in Ibero-America”, and a scholarship holder of the Heinrich Böll Foundation. His research project examines the dynamics of political coalitions and memory endeavors within trans activisms in Peru.


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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
HCIAS Blog, Blas de la Jara Plaza (March 31, 2026). Scenes of Peruvian Trans Activism. HCIAS Blog. Retrieved April 21, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15z8s


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