HIPS

HELP SUPPORT A VIRTUAL EVENT!

T.D.O.R.
Transgender Day of Remembrance
Friday, November 20, 2020
6:30 pm Virtual Video Event, ZOOM, Facebook Live watch parties

Sadly, 2020 has already seen at least 34 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means, the majority of which were Black and Latinx transgender…

Coverage of their deaths, many of the victims are young people in the beginning of their lives, with hopes and an ended desire. Twelve of those killed this year were in their twenties, including 27-year-old Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, who was dismembered and left in a Philadelphia river the same month that Hall’s body was discovered. Two of the victims, Yampi Méndez Arocho and Brayla Stone, were teenagers at the time of their deaths. None were over 40.

Feeling of helplessness is a learned reaction to the multitude of sorrows the trans community have been forced to bear. An estimated 29 transgender people were killed in 2017 as hate crimes increased for the third consecutive year. The next two years saw roughly identical levels of anti-trans violence, with the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) recording 26 and 27 such deaths in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

Even before COVID-19, transgender people were twice as likely as the average person to be unemployed, and many individuals are “out of work” and “have fewer places to go than they would have” if many parts of the country weren’t on lockdown.

To add to these economic stressors, there are increased rates of homelessness “due to incompatible situations of living at home” during quarantine, and most shelters that serve transgender people “are at capacity.” “This pandemic is exposing the ugly underbelly of our country that is directly impacting violence against Black trans women.”

“cycle of desperation and survival” is that many of the transgender women killed each year were murdered by men they had been involved with prior to their deaths. Tracy Single, who was found in a Houston parking lot in July 2019, was allegedly slain by her boyfriend, who was later charged for the 22-year-old’s murder. In May, Selena Reyes-Hernandez was shot multiple times by an intimate partner after the 37-year-old revealed that she was transgender, according to police. Some trans homicide victims, may have engaged in survival sex work and been killed by clients.

The preponderance of violence trans women face in their romantic and sexual lives bears out in the data: A 2015 report from the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 54% of trans people have experienced violence at the hands of an intimate partner. A recent survey of 36 major cities from the New York Times cited domestic violence as a leading cause for the 21.8% increase in murder rates this year. That report doesn’t spotlight anti-trans violence, but it’s hard to read those soaring numbers and not think of women like Reyes-Hernandez.

Knowing that these victims were killed by people they knew is “the scariest part.” “If you as a Black trans person, particularly a Black trans woman, can't trust people that you know, then who can you trust?”

Advocates across the country say,

‘I am frustrated. I am tired. I have run out of ideas to address these murders.’ 

“We hold vigils, we say their names, and we call out that Black trans lives matter, yet wesee murders — year after year — do not slow down,”

Out of the Shadows, Out of the Ashes, Moving Forward STRONGER!

Hear Our Cries as we speak for Our Existence...
"Black Trans Lives Matter"
“Say their Names”

2020 Trans Murders


Dustin Parker                                                  1/01                               McAlester, OK

Alexa Neulisa Luciano Ruiz                      2/24                   Toa Baja, Puerto Rico

Yampi Méndez Arocho                               3/05                         Moca, Puerto Rico

Monika Diamond                                            3/18                                Charlotte, NC

Lexi “Ebony” Sutton                                       3/28                               New York, NY

Johanna Metzger                                            4/11                               Baltimore, MD

Layla Pelaez Sánchez                                     4/21                                   Puerto Rico

Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos     4/21                                  Puerto Rico

Penélope Díaz Ramírez                                 4/27                 Bayamon, Puerto Rico

Nina Pop                                                                 5/03                                               MO

Helle Jae O’Regan                                             5/06                           San Antonio, TX

Jayne Thompson                                                5/09                         Mesa County, CO

Tony McDade                                                       5/27                             Tallahassee, FL

Selena Reyes Hernandez                               5/31                                   Chicago, IL

Dominique "Rem'mie" Fells                          6/09                            Philadelphia, PA

Riah Milton                                                            6/09                    Liberty Township, OH
 
Brian "Egypt" Powers                                      6/13                                     Akron, OH

Brayla Stone                                                          6/25                               Sherwood, AR

Merci Mack                                                            6/30                                     Dallas, TX

Draya McCarty                                                    6/30                           Baton Rouge, LA

*Tatiana Hall                                                           6/30                             Philadelphia, PA

Shaki Peters                                                           7/01                                Amite City, LA

Bree “Nuk” Black                                                7/03                      Pompano Beach, FL

Summer Taylor                                                     7/04                                    Seattle, WA

Marilyn Cazares                                                  7/15                                    Brawley, CA

Dior H Ova A.K.A “Tiffany Harris”           7/26                                       Bronx, NY

Queasha D. Hardy                                             7/28                            Baton Rouge, LA

Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears                            7/28                                  Portland, OR.

Kee Sam                                                                   8/12                       Lafayette, Louisiana

Aerrion Burnett                                                  9/19                  Independence, Missouri

Mia Green                                                               9/28                                    Philadelphia

Michelle Michellyn Ramos Vargas           9/30                San German, Puerto Rico

Felycya Harris                                                     10/03                           Augusta, Georgia

Brooklyn Deshuna                                            10/03                Shreveport, Louisiana

Sara Blackwood                                                   10/11                Indianapolis, Indiana 

Angel Unique                                                         10/25                Memphis, Tennessee