Home

[.betterwiseup]

Transgender advocates have, for years, been calling for an end to what they label the "epidemic" of transphobic violence. And while every November 20, the community and its allies remember those lives lost on the international Transgender Day of Remembrance, 2015 has been a particularly deadly year for transgender women in the United States. In the first seven weeks of the year, seven trans women were killed in the U.S.

At press time, 21 transgender women have been murdered this year alone, most of them women of color ? with one additional victim whose gender identity has been disputed in press reports and among family members and activists. That exceeds the number of transgender women killed in the U.S. in all of 2014, though neither of these totals account for individuals whose deaths were not reported or investigated, nor for victims who were misgendered or not regarded as trans women in death.

Read on to learn more about the women whose lives were taken due to transphobic bias and violence.

http://www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/07/27/these-are-trans-women-killed-so-far-us-2015

[AIDS!]

Terrible
Why isn't on the news or made more public

[∧ ∨ ∩ ∪]

Some of these girls need to find better occupations. Selling sex shouldn't be your only option.

[BAPHOMET.]

I wonder how they were killed? Like was it a hate crime or killed just like any other person.

[Barbie Dangerous]

But who's to say that the people who killed them targeted them because they were trans? What's the statistic for women killed this year in the same manner? I get the feeling it's much higher..

[AIDS!]

Some of these girls need to find better occupations. Selling sex shouldn't be your only option.

Sometimes selling sex is their only option

[.betterwiseup]

I wonder how they were killed? Like was it a hate crime or killed just like any other person.

Most of them were hate crime and most of them were killed by their boyfriend.

[.betterwiseup]

Police in suburban Washington, D.C. are investigating the murder of 21-year-old Zella Ziona, a transgender woman who they said was found fatally wounded in an alley near a parking lot between two Montgomery County, Md., shopping centers. She is the 21st trans person murdered in the U.S. in 2015.

A witness who wished to remain anonymous told Washington, D.C. TV station WJLA he saw the gunfire around 5:50 p.m. October 15.

"I only saw one gun. It just happened so fast, and kind of scary," said the witness, who claimed to have seen Ziona surrounded by four or five teenagers.

In the midst of an argument, he says one of the teens pulled out a gun and shot Ziona in the head. He said he heard the gunman fire four or five rounds.

?They argued and things happened so fast. I don't know what they argued for," the witness told WJLA.

Ziona died at an area hospital around 8:12 p.m. that evening, said police, who at first identified her as a male and by her birth name, but corrected that report after speaking to her friends and family.

?This is a horrific crime and a tragedy for those who knew Zella,? Gaithersburg police Chief J. Thomas Manger said. ?As with all homicides in Montgomery County, we have detectives working around the clock to thoroughly and completely investigate this murder.?

"Detectives do not believe this was a random shooting,? said Montgomery County Police Officer Rick Goodale to WJLA. Detectives are reviewing surveillance video from a nearby laundromat.

The Philadelphia Police Department confirms to The Advocate that a 22-year-old trans woman known as Kiesha Jenkins was murdered in the early hours of October 6.

Officer Tanya Little, a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department's Office of Public Affairs, states that Jenkins was attacked by five to six males, and shot in the back while exiting her vehicle at 13th and Wingohocking streets around 2:30 a.m. in North Philadelphia. She was pronounced dead at approximately 2:53 a.m. that same day at Einstein Medical Center.

?We will leave no stone unturned,? says Little, noting that, while no motive is known at this time, investigators are considering the possibility that Jenkins?s transgender identity played a role in the attack. Little also stressed the following:

?The victim?s gender is definitely something that investigators are looking into and we will consider her identity under the umbrella of all motives. We are canvasing the area where the homicide occurred for witnesses and investigators hope to examine available surveillance videos.?
Jenkins was a 22-year old Philadelphia native, who attended West Philadelphia High School and Temple University, according to Philadelphia Gay News.

Philadelphia TV station WCAU reports that Jenkins was first beaten by her attackers, and shot in the back twice by one of the assailants after she fell to the ground beside the vehicle.

No further information is available at this time about the identities of the suspects, and no arrests have yet been made.

[.betterwiseup]

In the early morning hours of March 7, Keyshia Blige, a 33-year-old transgender woman, was driving a friend in her car through Aurora, Illinois, "when several shots were fired," reports U.K. newspaper The Guardian, the first media outlet to report Blige's identity as a trans woman in late August.

One shot hit Blige in the shoulder, and though she attempted to drive herself to the hospital, she eventually lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a Jeep, according to a March Chicago Tribune report that identified the victim as "a man" and by her male name.

Blige was pronounced dead on arrival at an Aurora hospital at 2:58 a.m. on March 7, reports the Tribune. A subsequent report in the Tribune did mention that Blige was "transitioning" and had recently begun hormone therapy, though the paper continued to use male pronouns and Blige's given (male) name.

Blige was misgendered by police and media reports that relied upon her state-issued identification, notes The Guardian, though a friend of the victim contacted the U.K. paper to confirm Blige's identity as a trans woman.

That friend, Sasha Love, told The Guardian that Blige had begun pursuing her physical transition shortly before she was killed, and was "the happiest I had ever seen her once she started transitioning.?

In March, Aurora police told the Tribune that the shooting was "not considered random," but declined to release a motive. When contacted by The Guardian, Dan Ferrelli, media relations manager for the Aurora Police Department, said "It's definitely not a hate crime."

[BigDawg]

Why are they being shit down, this is so tragic

[Barbie Dangerous]

[BigDawg]

Now see

[BAPHOMET.]

b

[COD.]

 

[Nine]

This is so sad