DARWIN

Darwin is a 23 years old boy from Honduras, he is gay and a transvestite, who goes by the name of Briana. He and his brother were sex workers, because that is almost the only option you have when you are poor, transexual and need to find a way to make a living to work and support yourself and your family. His brother, Marco Tullio Montoya, was murdered on April 2nd, 2017. He and Darwin were working on a Friday night as usual, when Darwin left his brother waiting for him while he met a client. When he came back he could not find him. Marco, whose woman name was Shirley, was found dead two days later wrapped in plastic on the side of a an alley not far from his home. His body had signs of torture and chocking.

His murder is supposedly still under investigation, however Darwin explained how a week before his brother’s assassination, the local gang “offered” them to sell drugs (very often this happens, as the local “mara” gangs control the areas of prostitution and force the sex workers they control, to sell drugs for them to double the income and attract more people). Darwin and his brother refused, and seven days later Marco’s corpse was found.

It surely was a so called “hate crime” linked with homophobia because of the level of cruelty inflicted on Marco’s body, but this story entwines with the harsh reality of violence and tension linked with the high level of criminality and impunity with which many Hondurans have to coexist, and from which very often they escape nd often migrate.

Violence in Honduras and the figures of the ‘sicario’ and tattooed gang members, are somehow glorified through a figurative representation that shapes some sort of popular narrative of the social situation in Central America.

This project wishes to tell about those who remain, those who live on their skin the consequences of the extreme violence afflicting the country, it is a personal story of loss and resilience.

Darwin was very close to his brother. Marco was his best friend and he represented a guide and the only one he knew he could trust. They were both gay and Darwin followed his brother's steps taking part into beauty contests or learning from him how to put on make up and organize and keep wigs proper, to then rent them and make some money.

With his brother gone, Darwin tries to live on, honoring his memory by being who he is, in the meantime suffering from great loneliness, fear of death and acute state of depression.

Darwin is not safe, he has been threaten by the same gang that murdered his brother. He stopped working in the street as prostitute and lives in utter financial uncertainty in a country where 92% of killings get unpunished. Since the beginning of 2017, there have been 27 murders of LGBT community members in Honduras, according to the observatory on violent deaths of the organization Cattrachas.

This reportage is a journey into Darwin's life, from which one can have a sense of what it means living in Honduras as a member of the LGBT community.