Transgender immigrant finds new life, protection in D.C.

By Teresa Tomassoni, Published: December 16

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/transgender-immigrant-finds-new-life-protection-in-dc/2011/12/08/gIQAILGjyO_story.html

After a gang member held him at gunpoint inside his home, the 24-year-old gay man knew he had to flee El Salvador to survive. He had been beaten and harassed repeatedly on the streets by Mara Salvatrucha gangs, commonly known as M.S. 13. Eventually, they warned, they would kill him.

It took two attempts to get across the Mexico border, but in 2006, he was smuggled into Arizona and made his way to Washington, D.C., where his brother lived.

[...]

Valerie Villalta, now 30, found that new life as a transgender woman, and in the process, won a kind of protection she didn't even know was possible for people like her: asylum.