Trans activist and community heroine Lorena Borjas died in New York on Monday. The 60 year old known as ‘the mother of the trans Latino community’, was herself a survivor of human trafficking and for the past 30 years used her unique insight to rescue other trans women from the horrors of this crime.
Borjas patrolled her area of Queens, providing anything from food to condoms to those often enslaved in lives of violence and abuse. She recognised the stigma trans people are faced with on a daily basis, and connected them to services, even setting up an HIV testing clinic in her own home. Many of the people she helped were immigrants, and she extended her home to them until they could stand on their own two feet.
Despite her tireless and unpaid work in the community, Lorena Borjas was herself in a precarious position, facing deportation for a felony committed during her own time being trafficked. In 2007, Mayor Cuomo pardoned her, and she was ecstatic claiming “With this pardon granted, I will no longer have to go to sleep at night, worrying that I will be deported back to a country that is no longer home,” she added “I will be able to live my life without stress and fear of immigration and I will be able to continue doing the work I do and help more vulnerable transgender women.”
Lorena’s Sudden death from Coronavirus has devastated her community and the wider world. Samy Nemir Olivares said “Lorena was one of the pioneer transgender advocates in the country, who helped thousand of undocumented people, sex workers, transgender people – and a mother to an entire community,” adding “All this work for decades while speaking only Spanish. She founded the Lorena Borjas Community Fund and took hundreds of transgender people out of jails and detention centres – often with her own money. Her legacy will live on in an entire generation that saw her humble and philanthropic work.”
The Latino trans community has been left heartbroken by the passing of this irreplaceable advocate. In an outpouring of grief people have taken to Twitter and Instagram to pay tribute to the loss of a pioneer and a legend. The lawyer and trans rights activist Chase Strangio tweeted “Lorena saved more people than almost anyone I have ever known. She was relentless in her fight for her community. I am so sorry we couldn’t protect you from this”.
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