Brasil Once Again Tops The List with 80 Transgender Murders

Bruna Benevides, ANTRA president, will be the keynote speaker at the University of Chicago on March 31, 2026, on the Transgender Day of Visibility. Click here to register.

Brasil, which has long held the number one spot for transgender murders, recorded 80 such deaths during 2025, down from 122 in 2024, a 34% decrease according to Agência Brasil

The figures come from the latest edition of a dossier produced by the country’s National Association of Transsexual and Transgender People (ANTRA), released this week.

The result represents a drop of 34 percent from the previous year’s 122 murders – but does not remove Brazil from the top of the ranking, a position it has held for almost 18 years.

"The data is a reflection of an entire system that normalizes oppression against transgender people," said ANTRA’s President Bruna Benevides.

Bruna Benevides, also an author of the dossier, believes that the association’s report “is an embarrassment to the state,” educates society, and breaks the silence.

“We must recognize that policies to protect women need to be accessible and available to transgender women, for instance. We need to think about making what already exists accessible and implementing what has not yet been properly achieved. There is a lot of production, including data, but a lack of action on the part of decision-makers,” she added.

If trans people didn't report on the violence targeting our community, our murders would go unnoticed.

These numbers align with TransLivesMatter, which reported 73 murders during 2025. The potential under-reporting by the UK-based Translivesmatter project could be attributed to Brasil's unique language, Português Brasileiro. It is difficult to translate even for someone from Portugal, and murders often are not reported using Google search.

Cities Church MN: Epicenter Center Of Evangelical Awakening

The pass you see around my neck is proof of our success: at first, they had burly guards at the doors barring our entry, and then, by a miracle, the Methodist hierarchy granted us unfettered access and we greeted people at the doors. Photo / Kelli Busey Author Activist / Methodist General Conference Fort Worth Texas, June 4, 2008.

Back in the day, I participated with Soulforce and the Reconciling Ministries Network in actions meant to bring attention to the harm being done by religions that opposed equality. Our purpose, in my view, was to help conservative churches understand what they were doing and to help them return to the ways of Christ. Our acts of civil disobedience were always peaceful and most often planned with the knowledge of the Churches and local law enforcement.

Religion News Service: Evangelicals divided over what faith demands as immigration tensions deepen

The individual who was the reason for the peaceful action by BLM and others is David Easterwood, a pastor at the Cities Church and the acting director of the St. Paul ICE field office. As the ranking local ICE official, Easterwood is, by association, complicit in the execution of Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti by masked ICE agents. This would have been unthinkable back in my day, that is to say, after the KKK stopped hanging people in the name of our lord.

RMN Statement: This Is Not Enforcement. This Is State Violence.

The Justice Department’s swift investigation into the church disruption stands in contrast to its decision not to open a civil rights investigation into Good’s killing by an ICE officer. The department has not said whether it will open a civil rights probe into the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by federal officers, Religion News Service reports.