Indyra Mendoza has been fighting for LGBTQ+ human rights in Honduras for 20 years. She is the founder of Red Lesbica Cattrachas, the country’s only organization dedicated to tracking anti-LGBTQ+ crimes and providing empirical, data-driven evidence for legal cases in defense of the LGBTQ+ community. With statistics gathered through its Violent Death Observatory, which charts anti-LGBTQ+ violence in Honduras, Cattrachas was able to present the case of Vicky Hernandez, a trans woman murdered during the country’s 2009 coup, before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights last November. “With evidence-based advocacy,” Mendoza tells GO, “nothing stands between the human rights defender and the desired target.” Cattrachas has become a force thanks to its evidence-based approach, and Mendoza and her team frequently collaborate with other organizations worldwide to advocate for protections and anti-discriminatory measures. The most rewarding aspect of her work, Mendoza says, is getting to see the “new fearless generation of LGBTQ+ people. This new generation is free and has overcome the horror associated with the closet. They do not worry about how they express themselves.” She also owes much to her own generation, which paved the way for fearlessness by fighting for “equality in the access of basic human rights.” —RK
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