The Nicaraguan activist Karelia de la Vega, known as “Lady la Vulgaraza”, obtained her refugee card in Costa Rica where her gender identity was recognized. Through her social networks, she thanked the neighboring country for respecting her rights.
«How beautiful this moment! How I would like that in my country the Gender Identity Law towards trans girls be recognized, that their name be recognized, which they have adopted to be happy. How good that in other countries the rights of each one of them are respected! », Wrote the activist attaching the photo of her identification. “How I would like the Gender Identity Law for trans girls to be recognized in my country, to recognize their name, which they have adopted to be happy,” she said.
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Karelia de la Vega, 28, is a trans activist, member of the LGBTIQA+ population and influencer. She has been a strong critic of state repression, the imprisonment of political prisoners and has demanded her release from the Ortega Murillo dictatorship. Her popularity has led her to receive beatings from regime sympathizers, prison threats and even death threats; The latter led her to leave Nicaragua at the beginning of June 2022.
In an interview with Article 66, Hernández explained his process to obtain his card that “thanks to organizations in Costa Rica that help people of sexual diversity I had advice about the change of identity here in Costa Rica with a lawyer. The procedure was a bit long because we had to wait several hours, but in the end it was possible to change my name and now call me Kareli Kaylani Hernández Urrutia, and for me it is a great emotion, a great joy to be able to call myself with the name that I have chosen so that people recognize me and people call me.
She assures that as a trans girl it means joy and an achievement “because calling yourself with the name you have chosen for people to call you is quite nice, since in Nicaragua we do not have this Gender Identity Law with which we are respected. rights of each of the trans girls and above all that we have and above all that we have a voice and a vote in the country, thank you that in this country of Costa Rica we do have the opportunity to be visible to the LGBTIQA + community ».
Hernández crossed the Nicaragua-Costa Rica border on June 6 at around 3:30 a.m. and arrived in the neighboring country to the south “with one hand behind and the other in front,” with just enough money to board a bus that moved it from the Peñas Blancas border to San José. She fled the country after several weeks of police harassment and before an imminent capture. On the outskirts of her house there was a patrol and several officers who threatened to arrest her.
In Nicaragua, he had been the target of attacks and insults from supporters of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, all for expressing his disagreement with the dictatorship’s repressive policy against citizens. The main insults, he assures him, were because of his gender identity.
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Currently, she is proud of being “a hard-working person, a fighter, a person who is always at the forefront of working to be able to get ahead to be able to fight and help my mother in Nicaragua and the joy of knowing that I am no longer being persecuted or harassed by the regime of Daniel Ortega.
Kareli is happy to have the support of the trans community in the neighboring country to the south because “as we know in Nicaragua there are many trans organizations that do not defend the rights of the community, that all they are doing is washing their dishes and boots. to the government and that they are a puppet of the government. They claim to defend the rights of the community, but in all these years they have done nothing for the LGBT community,” said the activist.
