Strong defender of Cuba and trans activist died

From the Editorial

La Jornada Newspaper
Sunday, November 24, 2024, p. 6

The trans activist Irina Layevska Echeverría Gaytán, founder of the organization Promotora de Solidaridad Va por Cuba, died yesterday in Mexico City, the group itself reported. According to sources close to the subject, Echeverría was in a hospital in the Tláhuac mayor’s office, where he died due to complications caused by an air bubble in the lungs.

It is with great pain that we say goodbye to a critic, politician, trainer, left-wing activist, a comrade who showed us, among other great things, the importance of revolutionary continuity.the organization said in a brief statement.

On social networks, the Cuban ambassador to Mexico, Marcos Rodríguez Costa, wrote: It is with deep pain that we received today the sad news of the physical departure of Cuba’s dear friend Irina Layevska. Founder of the Va por Cuba Solidarity Promoter, recipient of the Friendship Medal, combatant, militant and revolutionary.

Echeverría was a candidate in 2020 to occupy the presidency of the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (Conapred) and is known for her fight for the human rights of people with disabilities and LGBT+ communities in Mexico.

In May 2010, he resigned from his position in the external advisory group of Conapred, in protest against the presidential decree that established May 17 as the Day of Tolerance and Respect for Preferences, promulgated by President Felipe Calderón, which was reformed in 2019 as National Day against Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, which is how it is currently known.

In 2007, Echeverría published the book Letter to my father. Testimony of a transsexual personin which she gives her testimony about what it means to be a trans woman.

The activist was active in various left-wing political formations, including the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico and the Revolutionary Workers’ Party. She was the founder of Morena, where she served until her death.