Luis Alberto Ramos was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday afternoon for murdering Tehuel de la Torre, a 23-year-old trans man.

De la Torre went missing in Buenos Aires Province in 2021 after going out to a supposed job interview. His case became emblematic of the trans-travesti community’s demands for justice. The trial was Argentina’s first for the murder of a trans man. (Unlike its direct English translation, travesti in Argentina is a gender identity with deep political roots that is worn with pride.)

“It’s a historic ruling,” Cristian Ariel González, one of the lawyers of Tehuel’s family, told the Herald. “It means calling things by their name — it was a trans-homicide.” 

Three judges at the court in La Plata convicted Ramos of aggravated homicide, motivated by hatred of gender identity and sexual orientation. Ramos was considered a repeat offender because he had previously been convicted of participating in a homicide committed in 2009. 

De la Torre’s body has not been found. However, the ruling said there was “precise and convincing evidence” that Ramos murdered him sometime between the night of March 11 and the early hours of March 12, 2021.

The government is offering a AR$5 million reward (US$5,160 at the official rate) for information leading to the finding of his body.

The other alleged killer is Oscar Montes, who will be tried by jury.

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Prosecutor Juan Pablo Caniggia and the legal team representing De la Torre’s family, led by Flavia Centurión and González, requested a life sentence for Ramos. His defense had requested his acquittal.

After the sentence was read, Tehuel’s mother Norma Nahuelcura chanted his name on the court’s steps surrounded by LGBTIQ+ activists. She held a sign that read “it was a hate crime.” There was a crowd waiting for her despite the rain.

“This does not end here because we want the other responsible parties to be sentenced and to continue searching for Tehuel so that he can rest in peace. May there never again be other Tehueles, may there never again be violence against trans people,” she told reporters.

The judges’ verdict quoted evidence demonstrating that De La Torre’s murder was a hate crime. One witness testified that Ramos said of Tehuel: “What a waste of a woman.” The ruling said De La Torre was a victim of stigmatization which, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, constitutes a process of “dehumanization, degradation, discrediting and depreciation of people belonging to certain population groups.”

Another statement described Tehuel’s struggles finding a job due to his gender identity. While applying for a job in a supermarket, his interviewer told him that he would not be eligible for the position because he “could regret his gender identity and get pregnant.”

The court considered it proven that Tehuel went from his house in San Vicente to Ramos’s home in the city of Alejandro Korn after being called for an interview for a waiting job. A video camera recording and pictures obtained from Ramos’ cellphone showed Tehuel in Ramos’s house. Tehuel’s cellphone geolocalization indicated that he was there. Close to Ramos’s house, investigators also found the burned remnants of Tehuel’s cellphone and of the shirt he was wearing the day of his disappearance. Blood found at Ramos’s home was found to be a 99.9% match to Tehuel (or the biological child of his parents).

The ruling also asked the province’s Gender and Women’s Ministry to create a dedicated protocol for searching for missing LGBTQAI+ persons, and to declare an emergency over the violence that trans-travesti people experience because of prejudice. It noted that they are usually “outside the scope of action of the criminal justice system.”

Mónica Galván, from the Relatives and Friends of Tehuel association, called the ruling “exemplary” and said it was important not only for this case but also for other trans people. 

“The reading of the ruling was very emotional — its contents offered tremendous insight into diversity and gender perspective,” she told the Herald. “And it accepted the creation of a protocol that we want to become a law — the ‘Tehuel Law.’”

Now, the family’s lawyers are waiting for Montes to be given a trial date. González told the Herald they would now focus on Montes’s trial and push for the jury to include trans people.