As Pride month begins in the United States, we share updates from Honduras where PBI provides accompaniment to multiple LGBTQ organizations and the United States, where we continue to see alarming rates of murders and governmental actions targeting members of the LGBTQ community, particularly trans individuals and youth.
TRANS RIGHTS IN HONDURAS
On March 31st, the International Trans Day of Visibility, PBI Honduras shared:
🏳️ ⚧️ Today, on Trans Day of Visibility, we want to recognize all trans people in Honduras, whose stories and achievements deserve to be celebrated and highlighted. This day is an opportunity to reflect on the challenges faced by trans people, as well as to emphasize the need to move towards a more inclusive and equitable society.
PBI Honduras also urged the government of Honduras to comply with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights’ ruling in the now 4-year-old Vicky Hernandez case and to guarantee justice and protection for trans people in Honduras.
Vicky Hernandez was a 26-year-old Honduran transgender woman and human rights defender who was shot and killed in 2009, on the first night of the U.S.-backed coup that ousted former President Manuel Zelaya. She was shot in the head while a curfew was in effect when only soldiers and the police would have been on the streets
⚖️ The Inter-American Court declared the State of Honduras responsible for the death of Vicky and dictated measures that the Government has an obligation to follow, including one of the most important struggles of trans people, which is to pass a law that allows them to change their names on their ID.
As reported by PBI Canada, London-based LGBT campaigner Peter Tatchell says on average two LGBT people were murdered each year in Honduras from 1994 to 2008. After the 2009 coup, that rate skyrocketed to an average of 31 murders per year. More specifically, 118 trans persons were murdered in Honduras between 2008 and November 2023.
PBI has accompanied Arcoíris, the LGTB Association of Honduras, since July 2015, and the Centre for LGTBI Development and Cooperation (Somos-CDC) since January 2022.
TRANS RIGHTS IN THE U.S.
Trans rights are also under attack in the U.S. and violence towards members of the community continues to grow. According to Everytown for Gun Safety, each year over 2 dozen transgender people are killed in the U.S.
“In 2023 alone, there were 35 homicides of transgender and gender-expansive people in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and guns were used in 80 percent of these deadly acts,” according to Everytown.
Since being elected to a second term, Trump has worked to further marginalize and criminalize members of the trans and non-binary communities. Legal challenges have been launched against Trump’s attempts to block trans individuals and youth from accessing necessary medical care and from being able to obtain passports with accurate sex designations. The Trump administration has also issued an executive order establishing that only two genders would be recognized by the federal government, male and female, and directed federal agencies to stop “promoting gender ideology” or acknowledging that gender falls along a spectrum as medical experts have determined.
In 2023, the state of Tennessee passed a law banning gender-affirming care for trans youth and a first-in-the-nation law that bans some drag performances and threatens the rights of trans and non-binary individuals to simply exist in public spaces.
DRAG IN THE U.S.
In 2023, Tennessee became the first state in the country to pass a state law that lawmakers say was intended to target drag shows. Tennessee’s Adult Entertainment Act bans adult cabaret performances (the definition of which includes any male or female impersonation) in public or where a minor is present that are “harmful to minors” and “lack serious value for a reasonable 17-year-old.”
In February 2023, PBI-USA sponsored an all ages drag show in Knoxville, Tennessee during a time when the drag community as well as the trans community were under attack by the Tennessee state legislature and faced violent protestors at drag events. With our executive director based in Knoxville and serving in local government, the event was an opportunity to stand in solidarity as a locally-based human rights organization with a marginalized community being targeted by the state. The drag show also served as a fundraiser for a senior care program in Knoxville as well as the East Tennessee Equality Council which operates Knox Pride.
In June 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee overturned the ban on drag, finding the law “unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.” However, in July 2024, the 6th Circuit federal court of appeals found that the plaintiff, Friends of George’s, an LGBTQ theater company based in Memphis, did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit and dismissed the case.
On February 24, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the theater company’s challenge of the state law, leaving the first-in-the-nation law largely intact
GENDER-AFFIRMING CARE IN THE U.S.
The Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for youth has made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 4, 2024, the Court heard arguments in the case with the parents of trans youth arguing that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the state arguing that the law protects children from “irreversible, unproven medical procedures.”
On February 7, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice, under the Trump administration, reversed its support of the parents that it had committed under the Biden administration, now stating that the Tennessee law does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. However, instead of seeking a dismissal of the case, the DOJ has asked for the Court’s “prompt resolution” recognizing the decision’s certain impact on “many cases pending in lower courts.”
PBI-USA will continue to monitor this case and explore ways that we can support human rights defenders in Honduras fighting for trans rights as well as communities here at home facing similar acts of repression and violence.