The former senator and lawyer Michelle Suárez, died at the age of 39, in the last hours of Friday. Suárez, a lawyer by profession, was the first trans legislator to hold a seat in the Parliament of Uruguay.
She became the first trans woman to receive a university degree and was a social activist and member of the collective for the defense of the rights of the LGBTIQ community Ovejas Negras. From her dual role as lawyer and activist, she was one of the drafters of the Equal Marriage Law project, approved in April 2013, under the mandate of former President José Mujica.
He was a member of the Communist Party and assumed a seat in the Senate in October 2017, replacing Marcos Carambula, during the second administration of Tabaré Vázquez.
However, he had to leave the bench a couple of months later, after problems with the law. He admitted to her that he forged signatures. She was sentenced to two years of house arrest and another two under supervised release for crimes of forgery of documents, fraud and false testimony.
The signature forgeries were made to speed up procedures, to harm the other party or for their own benefit. The Supreme Court of Justice (SJC), disqualified her from offering professional services and definitively moved away from politics.
Sergio Miranda, director of the Secretary of Diversity of the Municipality of Montevideo, echoed the death of the former senator and expressed the following. “I deeply regret the news of the death of Michelle Suárez, a fundamental trans activist in the fight for LGBTIQ+ rights and drafter of the Equal Marriage Law in Uruguay.”
