Tdor - A Day to Remember.
November 20th marks Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day of honoring and remembering the trans* and non-binary folks whose lives were lost in anti-trans violence, according to GLAAD. In the United States, despite the progress made in the last century and the growing visibility of those on all parts of the gender spectrum, anti-trans violence has grown in recent years. 2020 was the deadliest year in terms of transphobic violence, with at least 44** trans* people killed in the US; 2021 surpassed 2020 as the deadliest year with at least 46** (as of 11/17/21, this figure may not, and most likely isn’t, accurate as of publication).
This TDOR, we want to share the names of all those lost this year as well as those who were misgendered and/or deadnamed in their report or have not been found/marked as missing. It is vital that we share their stories and say their names; the largest group impacted by the growing violence are at the intersections of race, gender, and class-- BIPOC trans* women.
*trans(asterisk) is used as an umbrella term to incorporate all transgender, non-binary, and other non-cisgender identites.
**at least, due to reports going mis/unreported, delays in reports, or deaths not being connected to their identity
January 6th: Tyianna “Davarea” Alexander, a 28-year old Black trans woman, who was shot and killed in South Side Chicago, along with her friend Bradon Gowdy. Her death marked the first known transgender murder of 2021 and followed another similar murder, Courtney “Eshay” Key, in the same Chicago neighborhood just weeks eariler.
January 9th: Samuel Edmund Damián Valentín, a young Puertorican trans man, was found with multiple gunshot wounds when his body was struck by a car, as he was in the middle of the street. He was deadnamed and misgendered in the original report; his death marked the 7th transgender murder in Puerto Rico in a year and led to a boiling point at the violence against transgender Puertoricans.
January 17th: Bianca “Muffin” Bankz, a 30-year-old Black trans woman, was killed in a murder-suicide and was found alongside her suspected killer, Moses Allen in Atlanta, GA. She had recently been able to secure her own housing along with her friend, began medically transitioning, and had a job interview scheduled for the day after she was murdered.
January 25th: Dominque Jackson, a 30-year-old Black trans woman and prominent community activist, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head after she crashed her car into a telephone pole in Jackson, Mississippi. She was deadnamed in the original police report and is still listed by her birth name, alongside her chosen name, in local news.
January 28th: Fifty Bandz, a 21-year old Black trans woman, was murdered by her former partner in Baton Rouge, LA. Michael Joshua Brooks had previously threatened Bandz with violence and was not open about his relationship with her; he was arrested on charges of second-degree murder.
February 4th: Alexus “Kimmy Icon” Braxton, a 45-year-old Black trans woman, was found dead in Miami, Florida of suspected homicide. She marked the 10th transgender person lost to violence in Florida since 2018.
February 18th: Chyna Carrillo (Cardena), a 24-year-old Latinex trans woman, was beaten to death by Juan Carter Hernandez, who refused to cease his brutality once police arrived on scene and had previously served time for murdering his wife. Her death marked at least the third in Pennsylvania in the year up to that point.
February 22nd: Siblings Jeffery “JJ” Bright, 16 year-old trans boy, and Jasmine Cannady, 22-year old non-binary person, were shot and killed by their mother in Ambridge, PA. They were both very active in their community, with young Jeffery being involved in a local LGBTQ+ non-profit and Jasmine tagging along on occasion.
February 24th: Jenna Franks, a 34-year-old trans/genderfluid person, was found dead in Jacksonville, North Carolina, with her death being investigated as a homicide and hate crime.
March 3rd: Diamond Kyree Sanders, a young Black trans woman, was shot and killed in Cincinnati, OH. The shooting took place at 4am, and Sanders was found at the scene and transported to the hospital, where she later died due to her injuries. Local police denied that her killing was related to her “lifestyle” and was rather a “crime of greed” (despite being transgender is not a lifestyle and studies have shown that Black trans women face much higher rates of discrimination).
March 17th: Rayanna Pardo, a 26-year-old trans woman of color, was seen fleeing alleged harassers when she was struck by an oncoming car. Her family demanded her death be investigated as a homicide and hate crime.
March 19th: Aidelen Evans, a 24-year-old Black trans woman, was found dead in Fort Arthur, TX, with her cause of death being unknown until mid-July. She was experiencing houselessness, with family not seeing her since February. While her death has currently been ruled as foul play, she was repeatedly deadnamed and misgendered by the press since her death.
April 4th: Jaida Peterson, a 29-year-old Black trans woman, was found dead in a hotel room in Charlotte, NC after a welfare check was called in. In original reports, Peterson was deadnamed and misgendered in police reports and media, an unfortunately common occurrence and further demonstration of the difficulty in identifying trans individuals who are killed.
April 8th: Dominque Lucious, a 26-year-old Black trans woman, was shot and killed in Springfield, MO. The shooting was reported around 7am by a 911 caller; a witness reported that Lucious was expecting a guest from a dating site and that they were woken up by gunshots and a shooter pulling away, with Lucious shot and later pronounced dead at the scene.
April 15th: Remy Fennell, a 28-year-old Black transgender woman, was the second of two deaths in Charlotte, NC. Fennell was found in a hotel room, just as Jaida Peterson was two weeks prior. Fennell moved to North Carolina to focus on her hairstylist career and was known as Remy Kreations.
April 21st: Tiara Banks, a 24-year-old Black trans woman, was one of two shooting victims in the West Pullman neighborhood of Chicago late in the evening. CPD was unsure if Banks’ gender played a role in her attack; her death marked the 3rd in Chicago in just 4 months.
April 23rd: Natalia “Smüt” Lopez, a 24-year-old Black/Latinex trans woman, was found stabbed multiple times and later died at the hospital due to her injuries. Her reported partner confessed to stabbing her over a 911 call but later pled not guilty to the murder charge.
April 23rd: Iris Santos, a 22-year-old Latinex trans woman, was shot and killed in Houston, TX after a shooter walked up to her while sitting outside across the street from her apartment and started shooting at 9:30pm.
April 24th: Tiffany Thomas, a 38-year-old Black trans woman, was fatally shot in Dallas, TX and found at a car wash. Unfortunately, not much was known about Thomas’ personal life, but her death was mourned by her entire community.
April 24th: Jahaira DeAlto, a 42-year-old trans woman of color, was stabbed to death alongside the assailant’s wife, Fatima Yasin. DeAlto was an active member of the community and ballroom mother of the House of Balenciaga and had reportedly taken in Yasin, her husband, and two children.
May 1st: Keri “Bobo” Washington, a 49-year-old Black trans woman, was found dead in the back of an apartment building in Clearwater, FL. Unsurprisingly, she was misgendered in news reports. A suspect was identified as someone known to Washington; not much else was made known about Washington’s life, but she was honored by friends and loved ones on social media.
May 2nd: Thomas Hardin, a 35-year-old Black trans woman (used both he/him and she/her), was found in her home after no one had heard from her; friends state that she was shot. It was believed that Hardin was among at least 4 homicides across two states and may have partially been due to her previous romantic relationship with one of the two suspects.
May 3rd: Whispering Wind Bear Spirit, a 41-year-old Indigneous nonbinary person, was shot during an attempted robbery at friend’s house in York, PA. Bear Spirit described themselves as “Shawnee by birth and Potowatomi by relations”, with both tribes having populations in the Midwest. They were unfortunately deadnamed by police and media outlets.
May 4th: Sophie “Tu Chaparrita” Vasquez, a 36-year-old Latinx trans woman, was found shot in her home in Atlanta, GA. She was deadnamed and misgendered in police reports, until news sources like Transgender Planet and local Spanish-speaking news picked up the story. She is at least the second trans woman murdered in the Atlanta metro this year.
May 4th: Danika “Danny” Henson (aka Pryynce Daniel, Niia Da Don), a 31-year-old Black trans woman, was shot and killed in Baltimore, MD. She also may have identified as genderfluid; she was still early in her transition according to friends and family.
May 8th: Serenity Hollis, a 24-year-old Black trans woman, was shot in Albany, GA with the Albany police department releasing a video of the shooting on its facebook page and misgendered and deadnamed in their reports. Her death marked at least the 3rd in Georgia this year.
May 11th: Poe “Legion” Black, a 21-year-old mixed Indigenous two-spirit transgender man, was found in the Coachella Canal near the Mexico-California border. The sheriff’s office originally used his former name; Black was an artist that had moved to Slab City from Tennessee and had been experiencing housing instability and chronic health issues.
May 19th: Oliver “Ollie” Taylor, a 17-year-old white trans boy, died a week after he was kidnapped and shot; bystander Arik Reed attempted to stop the kidnapping and was shot, he was found at the scene in unknown condition. Oregon State Police stated that the kidnapping was not random.
May 24th: Haven Bailey, a young white trans man, was shot in a Chicago suburb by police after approaching them with a pellet gun. Family had reported that he was suicidal, struggling with mental health and addiction, and had mentioned “death by cop”. He was misgendered by police and a manager of the halfway house Bailey had been staying in.
June 12th: Tierramarie Lewis, a 36-year-old Black trans woman, was shot in a suburb of Cleveland, OH. Her death went misreported for over a month, when she was labeled as a John Doe. A city employee worked to gain information about her death, which is linked to her deadname despite records stating she had it legally changed.
June 14th: E.J. Boykin (aka Novaa Ru Watson), a 23-year-old Black trans man, was shot and killed outside of a Family Dollar in Lynchburg, VA. Local police stated they didn’t believe his death was a hate crime and proceeded to deadname him in news releases.
July 17th: Taya Ashton, a 20-year-old Black trans woman, was found in her apartment with a gunshot wound in Suitland, MD. While police did not see any direct motivation of her death being linked to her gender identity, her family referred to her death as a hate crime and was at least the 2nd violent death of a trans woman of color in Maryland.
July 31st: Shai Vanderpump, a 23-year-old Black trans woman, was found with a gunshot wound to the face in Trenton, NJ and later died at the hospital. Police were unsure of a motive but were investigating whether it was bias-related; friends stated she may have been killed while protecting someone else.
August 7th: Miss CoCo, a 44-year-old Black trans woman, was shot in an unhoused encampment in Dallas, TX. Her death marked the 7th trans person killed in Dallas since 2017. At the time of her death, Dallas PD was investigating her death as a hate crime despite gender identity not being a protected category.
August 23rd: Pooh Johnson, a 25-year-old Black trans woman, was found with multiple gunshot wounds in a vehicle in Shreveport, LA. Johnson worked as a makeup artist under the name Titanizer Mua.
September 1st: Zoella Martinez, a 20-year-old Latinex trans woman, was shot 5 times after getting inside a vehicle at Belmondo Reach Natural Area. Martinez met a man at the Natural Area whom she stated stole over $1000 from her; a friend present at the scene stated the car sped off after Martinez entered the vehicle and security camera footage captured 5 flashes of light consistent with muzzle flashes within the car.
September 6th: Disaya Monaee Smith, a 32-year-old Black trans woman, was shot and killed in the Chicago Suburb of Dolton. She was shot twice and died later at the hospital. She was unfortunately misgendered and deadnamed in media outlet reports; her death marked at least the 3rd in Chicago this year.
September 17th: Brianna Hamilton, a 25-year-old Black trans woman, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head in South Side Chicago’s Gresham neighborhood. Popular news outlets Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune misgendered and deadnamed her in their reports, with the Tribune listing her as one of 3 men killed over the course of the night.
September 30th: Kiér Laprí Kartier, a 21-year-old Black trans woman, was found with a fatal gunshot wound in a car outside of an apartment complex in Arlington, TX. Kartier was misgendered and deadnamed in police reports until corrected by friends and family; Arlington PD are unsure if her gender identity had something to do with her death.
October 2nd: Royal Poetical Starz, a 26-year-old Black trans woman, was shot 20 times in Miami Gardens, FL. She was misgendered and deadnamed in police and news reports; friend and family law attorney, Sandy T. Fox, shared outrage over the deadnaming, stating “I changed her name because she’s trans…That’s what she’s recognized as at the medical examiner’s office.”
October 11th: Mel Robert Groves, a 25-year-old Black trans man, died at the hospital after collapsing outside of his vehicle from multiple gunshot wounds in Jackson, MS. Unsurprisingly, news outlets deadnamed and misgendered Groves, but friends, family, and folks from The Knights and Orchids Society (a Black and trans-led community org) called out and corrected reports. Groves had previously stated he feared for his life, given that he lived in a state where LGBTQ+ people can legally be denied services.
October 17th: Jessi Hart, a 42-year-old white trans woman, was found in the woods outside of Portland, OR, though she was suspected to have been dead for two weeks when her body was found. Hart had been facing housing insecurity since starting her transition in 2016 and was featured in a local magazine on residents navigating poverty and housing in June 2021. She leaves behind a 13-year-old son, Caleb and her girlfriend Audrey Savage.
October 26th: Jo Acker, a 26-year-old white trans woman, was one of the victims of a shooting at Boise Towne Square Mall in Idaho. Acker was working as security guard at the mall when a white man dressed in black was seen openly carrying a firearm; Acker spoke with the subject, who began to walk away then turned around and shot her. Acker and one other were killed, while four others were injured.
October 30th: Rikkey “Tru Starlet” Outumuro, a 39-year-old Latinex trans woman, was fatally shot in Centralia, WA in her boyfriend’s home. Outumuro was a well known drag performer in the community as well as former Miss Gay Lewis County.
November 2nd: Jenny De Leon, a 26-year-old Latinex trans woman, was found outside of a house in Tampa, FL’s Sulphur Springs neighborhood early in the morning of November 2nd. Little is currently known about her death; a possible contributing factor is De Leon’s struggle with houselessness. She is remembered by her sister and members of the local PFLAG chapter as a wonderful, bright person.
November 4th: Marquiisha Lawrence, a 28-year-old Black trans woman, was found in her apartment in Greenville, SC, suffering from a fatal gunshot wound after a suspected confrontation. Lawrence’s trans mother, Eboni Sinclaire, described how she will be remembered for “her infectious smile and her heart of gold.”