On the morning of 6 October 1991, a group of neo-Nazis beat Sonia and Doris Romero as they were sleeping in Ciutadella park. The two transsexual women lived on the streets and had sought shelter in the park for the night, when they were the victims of a brutal attack that took Sonia’s life and left Doris severely injured. Her murder sparked a lively social debate on the discrimination and violence suffered by transsexual people. Sonia came to Barcelona in 1961 at the age of 16 and joined the world of the artists on Paral·lel. She earned widespread fame at the Teatre Arnau as a vedette, but with the crisis in variety shows she was forced to live and work on the street. Her memory lives on in a city that still fights for the rights of LGBTI people. In 2013 a commemorative plaque was put on the bandstand in Ciutadella Park, where she was murdered, to remember her story, and the bandstand was officially renamed ‘Plaça de Sonia Rescalvo Zafra’.
On the morning of 6 October 1911, she was murdered by a neo-Nazi ideological group because she was a transsexual woman, which sparked a major social debate. There is a plaque in Ciutadella park in her memory.