The latest revelations about the tragic death of Francisco Albornoz, a 21-year-old gay pharmacist whose body was found on June 4 in a remote ravine in the O’Higgins region 12 days after he disappeared, has left Chile’s LGBTQ community shocked.

The crime, which was initially surrounded by uncertainty and contradictory theories, has taken a darker and more shocking turn after prosecutors charged Christian González, an Ecuadorian doctor, and José Miguel Baeza, a Chilean chef, in connection with Albornoz’s murder. González and Baeza are in custody while authorities continue to investigate the case.

The Chilean Public Prosecutor’s Office has pointed to a premeditated “criminal plan” to murder Albornoz.

Rossana Folli, the prosecutor who is in charge of the case, says Albornoz died as a a result of traumatic encephalopathy after receiving multiple blows to the head inside an apartment in Ñuñoa, which is just outside of Santiago, the Chilean capital, early on May 24. The Prosecutor’s Office has categorically ruled out that Albornoz died of a drug overdose, as initial reports suggested.

“The fact that motivates and leads to the unfortunate death of Francisco is part of a criminal plan of the two defendants, aimed at ensuring his death and guaranteeing total impunity,” Folli told the court. “The seriousness of the facts led the judge to decree preventive detention for both defendants on the grounds that their freedom represents a danger to public safety.”

Prosecutors during a June 7 hearing that lasted almost eight hours presented conservations from the suspects’ cell phones that they say showed they planned the murder in advance. 

“Here we already have one (for Albornoz.) If you bring chloroform, drugs, marijuana, etc.,” read one of the messages.

Security cameras captured the three men entering the apartment where the murder took place together. 

Hours later, one of the suspects left with a suitcase and a shopping cart to transport Albornoz’s body, which had been wrapped in a sleeping bag. The route they followed to dispose of the body included a stop to buy drinks, potato chips, gloves, and a rope with which they finally descended a ravine to hide it.

Advocacy groups demand authorities investigate murder as hate crime

Although the Public Prosecutor’s Office has not yet officially classified the murder as a hate crime, LGBTQ organizations are already demanding authorities investigate this angle. Human rights groups have raised concerns over patterns of violence that affect queer people in Chile.

The Zamudio Law and other anti-discrimination laws exist. Activists, however, maintain crimes motivated by a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity are not properly prosecuted.

“This is not just a homicide, it is the cruelest expression of a society that still allows the dehumanization of LGBTQ+ people,” said a statement from Fundación Iguales, one of Chile’s main LGBTQ organizations. “We demand truth, justice, and guarantees of non-repetition.”

The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (Movilh), meanwhile, indicated that “since the first day the family contacted us, we have been in conversations with the Prosecutor’s Office so that this fatal outcome is thoroughly investigated, including the possible existence of homophobic motivations or components.” 

The investigation into Albornoz’s murder continues, and the court has imposed a 90-day deadline for authorities to complete it.

Editor’s note: Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Argentina and Uruguay from April 2-12, 2025.

ROSARIO, Argentina — Two transgender women in Argentina’s Santa Fe province are documenting the persecution of trans people that took place during the brutal military dictatorship that governed their country from 1976-1983.

Carolina Boetti and Marzia Echenique created the Travestí Trans Santa Fe Archive, which seeks to “create a collective memory,” in 2020. (“Travestí” is the Spanish word for “crossdresser.”)

The archive, among other things, includes interviews with trans women who the dictatorship arrested and tortured. The archive also contains photographs from that period.

The archive is not in a specific location, but Boetti and Echenique have given presentations at local schools and universities. They have also spoken at a museum in Rosario, the largest city in Santa Fe province that is roughly 200 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, that honors the dictatorship’s victims.

Boetti and Echenique during an April 11 interview at a Rosario hotel said they are trying to raise funds that would allow them to digitize the archive and house it in a permanent location.

“We have this material that is fantastic,” said Boetti.

The Associated Press notes human rights groups estimate the dictatorship killed or forcibly disappeared upwards of 30,000 people in what became known as the “dirty war.” The dictatorship specifically targeted students, journalists, labor union leaders, and anyone else who it thought posed a threat.

The dictatorship first detained Echenique in 1979 when she was 16. She said it targeted her and other trans women because they were “not within that strict” binary of man and woman.  

“There was a dictator during the dictatorship, and he dictated this binarism, and there was no other way than man or woman,” Echenique told the Blade. “Everything else was penalized, deprived of all rights. They took away everything.”

Boetti was 15 when the dictatorship first detained her.

“They detained me because of my sexual orientation,” she told the Blade. “Homosexuality in those years was penalized under the law.”

Boetti said the law in 1982 — the year when she began her transition — penalized crossdressing, prostitution and vagrancy with up to 120 days in jail. Boetti told the Blade that authorities “constantly detained me” from 1982 until she left Argentina in the 1990s.

Echenique said the regime once detained her for six months.

“The way of living, of studying, of walking freely down the street, of living somewhere, of sitting down to eat something in a bar or how we are sitting today, for example, was unthinkable in those years,” she said.

Echenique left Argentina in 1988, three years after the dictatorship ended. She returned to the country in 2006.

“The dictatorship ended in ’83, but not for the trans community,” she said.

Rosario and Santa Fe, the provincial capital, in 2018 implemented a reparation policy for trans people who suffered persecution under the dictatorship. They remain the only cities in Argentina with such a program.

Boetti on May 17, 2018, during an International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia ceremony over which then-Santa Fe Gov. Miguel Lifshitz presided became the first trans person in Argentina to receive reparations. Boetti receives a monthly pension of ARG 40,000 ($34.48) and a monthly stipend that pays for her health care.

Those who have received reparations successfully presented evidence to a judge that proved they suffered persecution and repression during the dictatorship. Boetti and Echenique pointed out that only 10 of the 50 trans women in Santa Fe who the dictatorship are known to have persecuted are still alive.

Post-dictatorship Argentina became global trans rights leader

Then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2012 signed Argentina’s landmark Gender Identity Law that, among other things, allows trans and nonbinary people to legally change their gender without medical intervention. The country in 2010 extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Then-President Alberto Fernández, who is unrelated to Cristina Fernández, in 2020 signed the Trans Labor Quota Law, which set aside at least 1 percent of public sector jobs for trans people. Fernández in 2021 issued a decree that allowed nonbinary Argentines to choose an “X” gender marker on their National Identity Document or DNI.

Alba Rueda, a trans woman and well-known activist, in 2022 became Argentina’s special envoy for LGBTQ and intersex rights.

President Javier Milei has implemented several anti-trans measures since he took office in December 2023. These include a decree that restricts minors’ access to gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatment and the dismissal of trans people who the government hired under the Trans Labor Quota Law.

Milei closed the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism, a government agency known by the acronym INADI that provided support and resources to people who suffered discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and other factors. He also eliminated Argentina’s Women, Gender, and Diversity Ministry under which Rueda worked until Fernández left office.

Gay Congressman Esteban Paulón, a long-time LGBTQ activist, in January filed a criminal complaint against Milei after he linked the LGBTQ community to pedophilia and made other homophobic and transphobic comments during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Paulón is among those who attended the 2018 ceremony during which Boetti received her reparations.

Echenique noted the restoration of democracy in Argentina did not end anti-trans discrimination and persecution in the country.

“We came from the period of the dictatorship, but we do not forget that everything didn’t end then,” she said. “The persecutions were worse than what we suffered during the period of the dictatorship once democracy returned.”

Boetti said she does not think Argentina will once again become a dictatorship under Milei.

“But unfortunately, there is a lot of harassment and a lot of hate speech,” said Boetti.

“There are now laws that protect us, but there is a fight for sure,” added Echenique. “I don’t think we’ll go back to how things were before, and that’s why I again emphasize the importance of archiving memory in this.”

The Chilean Chamber of Deputies on May 15 approved a report that recommends the immediate suspension of a program that provides psychosocial support to transgender and gender non-conforming children and adolescents and their parents.

The 56-31 vote in favor of the Investigation Commission No. 57’s recommendations for the Gender Identity Support Program sparked outrage among activists in Chile and around the world. Six lawmakers abstained.

The report proposes the Health Ministry issue a resolution against puberty blockers, cross-hormonalization, and other hormonal treatments for minors, regardless of whether they have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The report also suggests Chilean educational institutions should not respect trans students’ chosen names.

The report, among other recommendations, calls for a review of the background of all minors who are currently receiving hormone treatments. The report also calls for the reformulation of hormone therapy guidelines and sending this background information to the comptroller general.

Report ‘sets an ominous precedent’

Frente Amplio Congresswoman Emilia Schneider, the first trans woman elected to the Chilean Congress and a member of the commission, sharply criticized her colleagues who voted for the report.

“Today in the Chamber of Deputies the report of hatred against trans people was approved; a report that seeks to roll back programs so relevant for children, for youth, such as the Gender Identity Support Program; a program that, in addition, comes from the government of (the late-President) Sebastián Piñera,” Schneider told the Washington Blade. ”This is unacceptable because the right-wing yields to the pressures of the ultra-right and leaves the trans community in a very complex position.”

Schneider noted “this report is not binding; that is, its recommendations do not necessarily have to be taken into account, but it sets an ominous precedent.” 

“We are going backwards on such basic issues as the recognition of the social name of trans students in educational establishments,” she said.

Ignacia Oyarzún, president of Organizing Trans Diversities, a Chilean trans rights group, echoed Schneider’s criticisms. commented to the Blade. 

“We regret today’s shameful action in the Chamber of Deputies, where the CEI-57 report issued by the Republican Party was approved in a context of lies, misinformation and misrepresentation of reality,” Oyarzún told the Blade. “This only promotes the regression of public policies and conquered rights that have managed to save the lives of thousands of children in the last time.” 

Oyarzún added the “slogan ‘children first’ proves to be an empty phrase without content used by those who today promote measures that push to suicide a significant number of children for the fact of being trans.”

The Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBTQ rights group known by the acronym Movilh also condemned the approval of the report, calling it “transphobic” and accusing the commission of omitting the opinions of organizations and families that support the current policies. 

Movilh notes lawmakers approved both the Gender Identity Law and Circular 812, which promotes respect for trans students’ rights, within the framework of an agreement with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

“The text of the approved report is scandalous, because it seeks to take away the access to health to trans minors, including denying them the psychosocial accompaniment that also includes their respective families,” said María José Cumplido, executive director of Fundación Iguales, another Chilean LGBTQ advocacy group. “Likewise, it attempts against school inclusion, since it intends to eliminate something as essential as the use of the social name in educational spaces. In short, it takes away rights and freedoms to trans people, especially to minors.”

Cumplido, like Schneider, pointed out that “although its content is not binding, we will be alert to the political and legislative consequences that it may produce and we will continue working to avoid setbacks with respect to the rights of trans people.”

The report’s approval reflects a global trend that has seen neighboring Argentina, the U.S., and other countries reserve policies for trans and nonbinary young people. The Peruvian Health Ministry recently classified gender identity as a mental illness, and lawmakers have passed a law that prevents trans people from using public restrooms based on their identity.

Experts and human rights activists warn the suspension of Chile’s Gender Identity Support Program and other programs could adversely impact the mental health of trans and nonbinary children who already face high levels of discrimination and are at heightened risk to die by suicide.

“We will defend the Gender Identity Support Program and the right to exist of trans children and youth across the country,” said Schneider. “I want to reassure the trans families of our country that we will not rest until our rights are respected and that we can continue advancing because there is still much to be conquered.”