Killing of Wendy Calle

Wendy Tatiana Calle Alvarado was an Ecuadorian trans woman who was murdered on 11 November 1989 in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is remembered as one of the first Ecuadorians publicly known to have undergone gender-affirming surgery, and over time she became a symbol of the fight for LGBTQ rights in Ecuador.

On the night of 11 November 1989, Calle was returning from a nightclub in Guayaquil when she was intercepted and attacked by two men, who strangled her. After her death, her case drew heavy and often intrusive media attention focused on her identity as a trans woman. The writer and academic Ernesto Carrión has observed that Ecuadorian society displayed a morbid interest in the case centered on who she was rather than on the crime itself, and he has described her death as marking the beginning of a series of hate crimes against trans women in Guayaquil in the years that followed. Those responsible for Calle's murder were never identified or apprehended, and the case remains unsolved.

In the years since, Calle has become a symbol of the broader fight for LGBTQ rights in Ecuador. In 2017, transgender model Neida Barcos announced plans for a film based on Calle's life, intended to raise awareness about violence against LGBT people, and in 2019 Ecuadorian director Mario Díaz indicated that his web series would feature a character inspired by her.