Virginia Gonzalez Torres is a female human rights activist in Mexico who provides support and resources for the mentally ill. She is often referred to as the Dorothea Dix of Mexico. Born into a wealthy family that owned a pharmacy chain, Virginia began a volunteer women's program at Sayago hospital in the 1980s. In her investigative role, she has sneaked into most of the public mental institutions in Mexico, sometimes posing as a patient, and she once smuggled the mayor of Mexico City into a men's mental hospital to view the conditions there. More than once she has been beaten up at institutions when she was discovered inside hiding in the dark.