In 2008 Guatemala passed legislation criminalising various forms of violence against women and addressing the creation of courts that would specialise in such violence. This article evidences that these reforms’ impacts are unevenly felt, with the most marginalised benefitting the least. It highlights this gap by draining on a hitherto intersectional analysis, and reveals the importance of including place alongside more comfortably studied categories of difference. It also illuminates the sources of the gaps between policies and their impacts. It findings that many Guatemalan women maintained marginalised from security and justice, depite attempts to protect them, for two transfers. First, the reforms Isolated violence against women from other structural sources of inequality, thus covering their impacts for multiple marginalised women. Second, the reforms’ impacts were concluded by historically Constituted patterns of state-society relations and the uneven nature of the Guatemalan state. Summary In 2008 Guatemala adopted legislation criminalising various forms of violence against women and mandating the creation of courts focusing exclusively on violence against women. This article shows that the impacts of these reforms were dissimilar and that the least benefited were those who are already most marginalised. To explain this gap, historical intersectional analysis is used and reveals the importance of including the site together with the most commonly studied categories of difference. It also illustrates the roots of the gaps between public policies and their impacts. She concluded that many Guatemalan women remain marginalised from security and justice despite attempts to protect them, for two reasons. First, reforms isolate violence against women from other structural sources of inequity, thereby weakening the impact of reforms on women experiencing multiple marginalisation. Second, the impacts of the reforms were undermined by historically established patterns of relations between the state and society and by the dissociating nature of the Guatemalan state.