Report on Trans and Gender-Diversidad Person and Their Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights

“For more than a decade, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter the "IACHR," the "Inter-american Commission," or the "Commission") has received abun dant information on criminalization, violence, prejudice, and discrimination based on sexual orientation,, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics in the Americas. 1 The information also reveals the situation of extreme vulnerability that LGBTI persons face 2 throughout the continent, as the violation of their human rights is widespread and present-to a greater or lesser extentin all Member States of the Organization of American States (hereinafter, the "OAS"). These practices are based on a perpetrator's desire to "punish" identities, expressions, behaviors, or bodies that differ from traditional gender norms and roles or that run contrary to the man/woman binary system.3 They include violations of the right to life, including extrajudicial executions committed by State actors or with the acquiescent ce thereof, as well as murders committed by nonstate actors; sexual violence; and acts of discrimination and prejudice that hinder or block the exercise of their rights to identity, to justice, to health and education, among others.”