Beloved transgender activist Lorena Borjas died Monday morning due to complications in her battle against COVID-19.

According to NBC New York, Borjas’ chosen daughter, Bianey Garcia, first tweeted out the news of the 60-year-old activist’s passing, which was later confirmed by New York Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz.

Borjas, a human trafficking survivor and a lifetime defender of immigrants and sex workers, spent nearly 30 years as a community organizer in Queens. In her career, Borjas has organized HIV testing for trans sex workers, syringe-exchange programs and a fund to support people arrested on prostitution charges. She even went as far as setting up a weekly HIV testing clinic in her home, according to the Transgender Law Center. 

Northwestern University professor Dr. Steven W. Thrasher, a self-proclaimed scholar of HIV/AIDS, acknowledged how critical Borjas’ work has been to the Queens trans community in a Twitter post Monday.

“Lorena Borjas was a true Jackson Heights, Queens original—a trans Latina who bailed ppl out of jail, saved sex workers from policing & fought racism & transphobia. COVID took a real one. My heart goes out to all who knew her (& to all she didn’t know who she worked for anyway),” Thrasher wrote. 

ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio wrote that Borjas saved more people than almost anyone else he'd known and that she was unrelenting in her advocacy. 

“She and I and our team at the Lorena Borjas Community Fund raised tens of thousands of dollars to pay bail and bond for people and even when I lost sight of what and who mattered, she kept reminding me. We waited together in cold bail windows for hours. Speaking two different languages as much as we could. For the last decade, Lorena taught me more about advocacy than I could have ever learned anywhere else,” a portion of Strangio’s Facebook tribute read. 


Known as the mother of New York's trans Latinx community, Borjas was born in Veracruz, Mexico, and immigrated to the United States at 20 in 1981 in search of medical care to begin her transition. Upon settling in the Jackson Heights neighborhood, she found community living with other trans sex workers who also fled their countries due to transphobic persecution. By 1990, Borjas had successfully secured her legal status as a permanent resident of the United States. 

Later that year, Borjas was arrested for prostitution and human trafficking charges, according to The Story of Lorena Borjas documentary. It wasn’t until 2017 that Borjas’ truth as a sex trafficking victim would be acknowledged by Judge Toko Serita from Queens Criminal Court, the same year New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo would officially pardon her prostitution convictions.

Although her work in community organizing is finished, Borjas’ spirit to support those in need lives on. Prior to her passing, Borjas helped start a GoFundMe page to support trans New Yorkers losing income due to coronavirus precautions, which will remain active and is growing in donations.

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