The struggle of Kenya, the trans who survived a deadly attack

1Mexico is the country with the most transfeminicides in the world after Brazil, about 80 each year.

Kenya survived an attack because the man who tried to kill her jammed his gun after killing her best friend, Paola.

It was 2016 and both were practicing prostitution on the streets in Mexico City.

Despite the fact that the event was recorded and there were numerous witnesses, the man was released the following day.

Since then, Kenya needs daily police protection, and has become an activist fighting full-time for the rights of trans women.

In the image, on the Day of the Dead, she visits the pantheon where her friend lies, in Mexico City.

2Paola's grave, murdered at age 25.

Her executioner remains at large, in search and capture after an intense battle by her friend Kenya against impunity for this and other crimes against trans women.

According to the organization Letra Ese, between 2013 and 2018, there were 473 homicides of LGTB + people in Mexico, 261 of them were trans women

.

3Kenya arranges flowers for a grave of another trans victim.

When one of them is murdered in Mexico City, the authorities contact Kenya.

She is in charge of looking for relatives.

In case they do not exist or do not want to know anything about the matter, since many of these women have been rejected since their childhood, the activist is in charge of raising money to pay all the expenses generated for the wake and burial, as well as accompany the body during the process.

4Kenya has founded a civil organization called Casa de las Muñecas Tiresias, and the first shelter in Mexico City for trans people, Hogar Paola Buenrostro, in honor of her murdered friend.

In the image, one of her collaborators in the hearse that they use to move the coffins.

5In the image, he is in the funeral home watching over a body in Mexico City.

Kenya is known as "the woman who buries trans", but not only helps this group, but also takes responsibility for people on the street or immigrants without families or resources in the country.

She is in charge of finding the means to give them a dignified burial.

6Kenya buys flowers at night for a wake.

This woman was born in a troubled neighborhood in Mexico City, left behind an abusive home at the age of nine.

The same day he left home, he began his transition process and began working on the streets to support himself.

At the age of 13, she contracted HIV and, shortly after, was confined in the male module of a prison in Mexico City for a drug-related problem.

There he spent eight years.

7Kenya leaves flowers on the graves of the murdered women.

8Kenya and her companions block traffic on Periférico, one of the busiest highways in the capital of Mexico, with a coffin.

The reasons: to demand progress from the Human Rights Commission in the case of Paola, his murdered partner, and to request a meeting with the attorney general to seek solutions to the high number of transfeminicides in the country.

9Kenya speaks to the media before demonstrating on one of the most important roads in the capital to give visibility to the large number of femicides in Mexico City.

10 Excited in the cemetery remembering her partner and other murdered trans women.

Day of the Dead.

Mexico City.

11Cleaning a grave.

Mexico City.

12In addition to coordinating the civil association that created (the Casa de las Muñecas Tiresias) and the first hostel for trans women in Mexico City, in her few spare moments, Kenya acts by lip-syncing her favorite artists.

Here at an event to make the trans community visible.

13Detail inside the hearse used by the association for the transport of coffins.

Mexico City.