Trans activist murdered

A prominent transgender activist has been found murdered in a ravine, just outside of her home town of Puebla, Mexico.

Agnes Torres (pictured) had her neck slashed and body burnt in signs she had been tortured, 2B Magazine reports.

The writer and activist for LGBT human rights had been missing for three days. Friends and local activists are calling for a swift investigation.

The Puebla-based organisation Vida Plena Puebla released a statement condemning the crime.

“We are distraught, pained, enraged and saddened by this crime, and feel powerless over how, yet again, a brave person has succumbed to the most brutal of gender-based violence… in this case, violence against a transgender woman,” the statement read.

The organisation demanded that Torres’ murder case be treated the same way as that of “the daughter of any governor, politician, or attorney”.

The 28-year-old psychologist, educator and human-rights advocate had been a leading advocate of trans acceptance in her native country.

News of Torres’ death spread quickly among local LGBT activists in Mexico and, last week, close to 2000 people congregated outside Puebla’s civic plaza, demanding the murder be classified as a hate crime.

Onán Vázquez Chávez, president of Vida Plena Puebla, told CNN Mexico that violence against queer individuals should not be treated as “crimes of passion” when there is clearly a “luxury of rage” involved.

Torres is the sixth LGBT murder in Puebla this year.