This story first appeared on ebar.com Sept. 28, 2022:
Sylvia Guerrero, whose transgender daughter was killed 20 years ago October 4, said, “If I had an LGBTQ child now, I’d still be worried, just as I was for Gwen at the time.”
“I was hoping the world would be a much better place for the LGBT community but it’s not,” Guerrero told the Bay Area Reporter. “It’s the world we live in, and it starts at home. Everyone deserves equality across the board.”
Guerrero’s daughter, Gwen Araujo, was 17 years old when, in 2002, she went to a house party in the East Bay city of Newark where she was beaten, tortured, and strangled by a group of young men — two of whom she reportedly had sex with — after they discovered she had male anatomy.
Guerrero said that at the time of the murder, “I had everything — a car, family, and 401K — and in one night my world forever changed and never has been the same.”
Beset by financial and health issues, Guerrero now lives in Tracy with one of her sons. She has a GoFundMe to help raise money for her expenses, saying that at 58 and having been outside of the workforce for so long, prospective employers often don’t get back to her.
Read more at ebar.com.
John Ferrannini 