Gisberta Salce Júnior

Gisberta Salce (1960–2006) was a Brazilian trans woman who was murdered in Porto, Portugal in 2006.

Salce grew up in Brazil, but left for France at the age of 18 to escape a wave of homicides against transgender people in São Paulo and ended up in Portugal two years later. In 2006 at the age of 45, she was physically and sexually assaulted over the course of several days by a group of boys ranging in age from 12 to 16. As a result of her murder and the subsequent investigation and trial, multiple controversies erupted over corruption and abuse at the Oficina de São José.

Life

Early life Angelina Muro Salce and Gisberto Salce, Gisberta's parents, had eight children. Gisberta was the youngest, and was named after her father, Gisberto. She was nicknamed "Júnior". She would later feminize her given name, from Gisberto to Gisberta.

The march started in Praça 24 de Agosto to July 2006, a place chosen to remember the trans woman murdered by a group of minors, who started the same week of the march to be tried in Porto.

Poem "Indulgência Plenária" A year after the events, Alberto Pimenta published “Indulgência Plenária”, a poem in the form of elegy that evokes the figure of Gisberta Salce.

Street Gisberta Salce Júnior In May 2024, a street in Porto’s Bonfim neighborhood was named after Gisberta Salce Junior, following years of advocacy. While the Toponymy Commission initially rejected similar proposals in 2010 and 2020, a renewed petition narrowly passed in October 2023 and was subsequently approved unanimously by the Porto City Council in January 2024.

Efforts to honor Gisberta Salce by naming a street after her began in 2010 with the “Viver a Rua” project, part of FITEI, the International Festival of Iberian Expression Theater. Participants were asked to submit a list of ten individuals they felt should be commemorated in Porto's street names, and Gisberta’s name was the most frequently mentioned. The project organizers submitted a petition to the Toponymy Commission, but received no response. Nine years later, actress Sara Barros Leitão led a similar initiative, encouraging audiences of her show Todos Os Dias Me Sujo De Coisas Eternas to sign a new petition. Submitted in March 2020, this petition also received no response, and it was later disclosed that both proposals had been rejected by the commission.