LGBTQ people in Puerto Rico

[1] The dismembered body of 19-year-old college student Jorge Steven López Mercado was discovered 14 November 2009 in Cayey, a city located in the island's interior region.

López was widely known as a volunteer for organizations advocating gay rights and HIV prevention, and activists planned remembrance vigils for him in cities including San Juan, Chicago, and New York.

[4] On 13 September 2010, the bodies of Justo Luis "Michelle" Gonzalez and Miguel Orlando "La Flaca" Soto, two transsexuals were found murdered along a road in the small town of Juana Diaz.

[18] On 6 November 2012, Popular Democratic Party candidate Pedro Peters Maldonado became the first openly gay politician elected to public office in the island's history, when he won a seat in San Juan's city council.

In his youth, Santiago had been forced to attend conversion therapy sessions, a pseudoscientific practice that aims to change the ideas of LGBT people.

[20][21] Loverbar was a queer bar, restaurant and nightclub located in Río Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico that opened in 2020[22] and closed the following year.