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Venecia dreams of living in full alignment with her truest self. But for the 28-year-old trans woman, whose last name has been omitted for safety reasons, the pathway to doing so has been lengthy and arduous, paved with many moves from her home country of Venezuela to the neighboring Colombia—and back—in search of the ability to be legally and socially recognized as a woman.
Still, that tedious process, through which she resettled in the Netherlands nearly a year ago, has been a welcome one. “As a woman, I aspire to more than just having to explain my existence daily to those around me,” she says in an interview ahead of International Women’s Day. “I have been a woman since long before I was born. I just learned how to express it.”
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Venecia’s journey mirrors that of many others who are engaged in the ongoing fight for gender parity and freedom. Today, just two dozen nations—around a fifth of which are in Latin America—allow people to alter their gender markers through self-identification measures. But despite Venecia's initial self-relocation attempt to Colombia, which is deemed more progressive due to its gender marker update regulations, she encountered additional hurdles tied to other aspects of her identity.
“Colombia gave me an openness to start my gender transition socially, but… I wanted more. I want to be [recognized] in society as any other woman,” she says. “But it was impossible for me because I am a migrant. I could not access all the rights that a Colombian woman normally has.”
In spite of recent advances, Colombia, in tandem with the global anti-trans movement, is facing a series of backlash and regression, experts note. More than 280 cases of violence based on gender identity or expression were recorded by the Colombian Ombudsman’s Office in 2024. The April 2025 death of 32-year-old trans woman, Sara Millerey González Borja, whose torture was recorded and publicized by a number of onlookers at a neighborhood creek, prompted (in part) the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to call on Colombia to “reinforce measures to eradicate” violence against queer and trans individuals.
“Despite some progress by the State—such as directives regarding investigations, the establishment of specialized task forces, and the legal and social recognition of rights—data from civil society indicates that Colombia continues to report some of the highest rates of violence against LGBTI individuals in the Americas,” the organization said. Indeed, of the 40 deaths of LGBTQ+ people that were recorded in 2024 by local NGO Caribe Afirmativo, transgender individuals made up more than half of the victims.
Rainbow Railroad sees that type of discrimination firsthand: Nearly seven in ten of the requests for help Rainbow Railroad received from women in 2025 came from transgender women, amounting to more than 2,600 requests.
Venecia's own request for help was further exacerbated by the ongoing political and economic crisis in Venezuela, which likely contributes to the state’s position in the top five Latin American countries where LGBTQI+ people are requesting aid. While data on health and safety concerns of those in Venezuela is limited, individuals who reached out to Rainbow Railroad reported experiencing employment discrimination, public outing and humiliation, community violence, verbal threats and abuse, as well as a lack of basic needs and homelessness.
Venecia explains that despite her attempts to advance her professional development in Latin America by studying business administration, she did not feel she had a path forward. “I simply wanted to find a safe place for me to be able to exist as the woman I am,” she says. “[It's] something that cannot be done in Venezuela, no matter how hard you fight, because it is practically like swimming against the current. If you manage to cross that river, people are still waiting to continue attacking you.”
To move forward despite state limitations regarding updating her gender marker, she says she relied on a quality that all women possess: resiliency. “We obviously do not come into the world knowing [everything], but we have that ability to be able to solve absolutely everything and I think it is because women act from love,” she says.
Last May, she was able to obtain her legal residency abroad, five years after she initially reached out to Rainbow Railroad for assistance. That has also opened the doors to her eventual legal recognition as a woman. “That makes me feel happy, you know? It makes me feel like I can finally start living my life,” she says.
Before she landed in Amsterdam last April, after a potential migrant pathway to the U.S. through the Safe Mobility Program was terminated under the Trump Administration, Venecia recalls a single moment of comfort that overtook her fear.
More than 4,500 miles away from her country of origin and the soft-sandy beaches she yearns for, her silver hoops glisten as she tenderly recounts her favorite memory since moving to Europe: “The [immigration] agent calls on the telephone and tells the women he’s talking to, 'I'm here with a woman, who is legally a man, but obviously a woman.' The fact that he recognized me as a woman, despite my documentation, for the simple fact that he was seeing what a woman is—that made me feel very calm,” she says. “It is something that would never have happened in my country.”
Rainbow Railroad stands in solidarity with queer and trans women across the globe this International Women’s Day, and every day, as they work towards equality and liberty. Help other individuals like Venecia get to safety by making a donation today.