A New Mausoleum for Trans Women Has Opened in Mexico City

Mexico City has dedicated a new mausoleum to trans women, the first such memorial site of its kind in the country.

The mausoleum opened last Thursday in Iztapalapa, the most populous borough in Mexico City, per the Associated Press. The project was organized by Casa de las Muñecas Tiresias, an organization dedicated to aiding trans people and sex workers.

In an Instagram post from last week, the organization invited people to the inauguration celebration for the mausoleum, calling it a place of rest for their trans sisters.

The first woman to be moved to the mausoleum will be Paola Buenrostro, who was killed in 2016. In comments reported by the Associated Press, activist Andrea Luna remarked to her late friend’s grave, “You don’t have to pay rent anymore. You will have your own home now.”

During the inauguration ceremony, activist Kenya Cuevas, who founded Casa de las Muñecas Tiresias, told the audience, “Thank you Paola, because in your name we were able to reach an important milestone for the trans community.”

As the Associated Press notes, many of the women who are being honored in the mausoleum were victims of hate crimes. Others died of natural causes and still others are those whose bodies were never claimed by relatives. Cuevas expressed a desire for a dignified final resting place for all of the women, regardless of their cause of death. In total, the mausoleum will have space for 149 women.

According to research published in the data visualization platform Statista, at least 56 Mexican trans women’s murders were reported between October 2021 and September 2022. That means that the country had the second highest anti-trans murder rate in Latin America during that time, second only to Brazil. That also doesn’t account for the murders that may have gone uncounted either; considering that in some cases at the mausoleum, relatives didn’t claim the deceased’s bodies, the figure is very likely an undercount.

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