Claudia Dayanara Spellman Sosa (born in

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

in the 20th century) is a Honduran

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

and

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

. For her efforts as a

human rights defender A human rights defender or human rights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect human rights. They can be journalists, environmentalists, whistleblowers, trade unionists, lawyers, teachers, housing campai ...

, ''Time'' magazine named her as one of the hundred most influential people of 2021.

Life

According to reports by the global LGBTIQ organization ''OutRight Action International,'' on May 26, 2007, Claudia Spellmant was stopped by a police patrol in San Pedro Sulas on her way to a concert and asked to get into the police vehicle for no reason. When she refused, she was detained and taken to the police station. Half an hour later, seven other women, three of them trans people, were physically, verbally and psychologically abused by the police officers. Colonel Sandoval, the municipal police chief, gave orders to beat one of the arrested trans women. The reason he gave was that she had defied his order to avoid certain public areas in the city that were only for so-called normal and decent people. Because of violence against trans people, Claudia Spellmant fled Honduras in 2013 and now lives in New York. She works as a

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , . Models can be divided in ...

Involvement

Claudia Spellmant belongs to the transgender organization ''Colectivo Travesti of San Pedro Sula'' and is a member of the network ''Redlactrans'', which represents organizations of trans people in Latin America and the Caribbean. This advocates for the visibility of trans people and an improvement in their legal situation. Spellmant founded the trans collective ''Colectivo Unidad Color Rossa.''

Landmark court ruling: Vicky Hernández v. State of Honduras

Together with the human rights organization ''

Robert F. Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968), also known as RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New Yo ...

Human Rights'', the lesbian network ''Cattrachas'' founded by Indyra Mendoza brought the case of trans person and activist for trans women Vicky Hernández before the

Inter-American Court of Human Rights The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (I/A Court H.R.) is an international court based in San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was formed by the American Convention on Human Rights, a human r ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

. They represented the family of the slain and sued the Honduran government. In 2009, Hernández had been brutally murdered in

San Pedro Sula San Pedro Sula () is the capital of Cortés Department, Honduras. It is located in the northwest corner of the country in the Sula Valley, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Puerto Cortés on the Caribbean Sea. With a population of 701, ...

at the age of 26. This was part of a series of murders of trans individuals that followed a June coup that ousted President

José Manuel Zelaya José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (born 20 September 1952)Encyclopædia BritannicaManuel Zelaya is a Honduran politician who served as the 35th president of Honduras from 2006 until his forcible removal in the 2009 coup d'état; since January 2022, ...

. From its hearing location in San José,

, the court called other trans people to the stand by virtual means. Among them was Claudia Spellmant, who had been friends with Vicky Hernández. Hernández regularly visited Spellmant's ''Colectivo Unidad Color Rossa-'' office in

. Initially, Hernández only procured condoms and attended security training there, but later she became an active member of the collective. Authorities proved Hernández was infected with HIV and subsequently did not perform an autopsy, so the circumstances of her death could not be fully determined. Spellmant testified that Hernández's body showed no signs of autopsy, but had been shot in the head. The witness expressed the belief that Hernández died because she was an HIV-infected trans person. Spellmant testified in 2020 that in Honduras, systematic discrimination pushed trans people into prostitution. Most trans people who remained in that state would die. The court in June 2021 ordered the Honduran government to continue investigating the case and to initiate legislation to protect LGBT persons. Among other things, it said, trans people should be allowed to officially change their gender identity. In addition, the court ordered the government to pay $30,000 in

damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognized at ...

to the family of Vicky Hernández. In addition, the Honduran government would have to create a

scholarship A scholarship is a form of Student financial aid, financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, Multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, athleti ...

for trans women named after Vicky Hernández. Also, an anti-discrimination program must be created for security agencies, and a state registry of violent acts against LGBT people must be created. Honduras has announced it will comply with the ruling. Claudia Spellmant and her peers thus achieved for the first time a landmark court ruling on the question of whether governments in the region had done enough to protect trans people so far. This ruling is considered a legal "milestone" for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Background

Honduras is one of the most dangerous countries for people in the LGBTIQ community. More than 389 murders of LGBTIQ people have been recorded since August 2009 (as of August 2021). Only 89 of the cases have been prosecuted and 90 percent of the acts go unpunished. Due to the widespread impunity of these crimes against people of the LGBTIQ community, numerous organizations formed to create shelters, record the acts of violence, and disseminate them in the international media. According to observations by the ''Rainbow Association,'' an average of one LGBTI person is killed every 11 days in Honduras. That's about 33 per year.

Awards

* 2021: ''Time'' magazine: Claudia Spellmant, along with Indyra Mendoza, was selected as one of the one hundred most influential people of 2021 and named to the

Time 100 ''Time'' 100 is a list of the top 100 most influential people, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, politicians, and journalists, the list is now a highly ...

list.

References

External links

Claudia Spellmant website

Testimony of Spellmant in the Hernández death trial

Interview with Claudia Spellmant
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spellmant, Claudia Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Honduran LGBTQ rights activists Honduran human rights activists Honduran women human rights activists Honduran expatriates in the United States Transgender rights activists