There is a pattern to the attacks in Guatemala. The victims call the first step “profiling”. They are spotted, monitored, and followed. They are seen in one of the LGBTI spaces that dot the country’s bigger cities, and they are targeted because of their sexuality or gender identity.
Next comes the waiting. The attackers bide their time until their victims are, in their own words, “at their most vulnerable”: walking home alone at night, working on badly-lit streets, separated from the support of their friends and community. Then, when the time is right, they attack.