Michelle Suárez Bértora (21 February 1983 – 22 April 2022) was a Uruguayan activist, lawyer, lecturer, politician, and writer. She was Uruguay's first transgender university graduate, first trans lawyer, and first transgender person elected to office. She was a Senator from 2014 until 2017. She was born in Salinas, Uruguay.
She transitioned at the age of 15 with the support of her mother. Suárez went to primary and secondary school in Salinas in 2004. After six years of study, and a legal transition to allow her to graduate with her proper gender. She was the first (and only) trans-woman to become a lawyer in Uruguay.[1]
She graduated in 2010 from the University of the Republic as the first transgender person to complete university studies in the country.[2][3]
In 2014, she also became the first transgender person elected to the Uruguayan legislature.[4]
Suárez Bértora died on 22 April 2022 in Montevideo, Uruguay from a heart attack at the age of 39.[5]
↑Vaz, Gabriela (22 August 2010). "Yo decidí no marginarme" (in Spanish). Montevideo, Uruguay: El Pais. Archived from the original on 23 December 2018. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
