Nebraska Montenegro

Kerly Nebraska León Gurumendi (born 1955), more commonly known as Nebraska Montenegro, is an Ecuadorian LGBTQ rights activist. formed by members of the former Coccinelle Association.

Life and career

Montenegro was orphaned at 15. She began working, intending to complete her secondary education at the César Borja Lavayen School. At 20, she moved to Quito, where she joined a group of transgender women who were engaged in sex work in El Ejido Park.

She worked for several years in the La Mariscal sector, where, starting in the 1980s, transgender women and transvestites began to suffer persecution and abuse from the authorities. Montenegro herself was detained several times by the police, who demanded money in exchange for not being locked up in cells with dangerous criminals.

Later, she began studying hairdressing at the Ecuador Beauty Academy and became a pupil of Orlando Montoya, a Colombian stylist and LGBTQ activist who created some of the first LGBTQ organizations in the history of Ecuador. with Montenegro as its president. The organization filed a lawsuit against the Ecuadorian State for crimes against humanity on May 17 of the same year, within the framework of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, for the abuses committed by the police against LGBT people between 1980 and 2000. Montenegro was one of the main proponents of the lawsuit, seeking justice and helping to restore the historical memory of abused LGBT people.