This article contains descriptions of fatal violence against a Black transgender woman.
Redd, a Black trans woman from Chicago also known to her friends as Barbie, was shot and killed in the early morning of September 8. She was 26 years old.
At about 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, Redd and her best friend Michelle Lee were hanging out with their other friends on the corner of Monroe Street and Kenton Avenue, as the Chicago Sun-Times reported this week. Lee told the Sun-Times that around that time, a man walked by, talked to another group of people nearby, then left — only to return at roughly 2 a.m. and begin shooting. “We heard one shot, [and] we all ran,” she said. “And he kept shooting.”
Police told the Sun-Times that 15 rifle shell casings were recovered at the intersection. Redd was shot multiple times in the back and legs, killing her, while another unidentified person was shot in the chest and hospitalized in critical condition. Little other information is publicly known about the shooting, and police did not release further public statements this week. Redd’s cousin Mariyah Philips alleged to the paper that police told her they had video footage of the shooting, but that she had not received updates from them as of Tuesday. Officials have not said whether her killing will be investigated as a hate crime.
“I do feel like it was a hate crime,” Phillips told the Sun-Times. “I want to start [bringing] awareness [that] people are really attacking that community. I want people to know that they are being attacked.” According to the Sun-Times, at least 14 trans and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in Chicago since 2016; Redd’s is reportedly the first such killing in the city this year.
Redd began her transition at 16, Phillips recalled, and was close with both her biological and chosen family. Another friend, Trevon Pope, remembered Redd as someone who “wanted to be loved and respected […] That’s one thing she didn’t play about. She loved and respected people.”
A balloon release was held in Redd’s memory on Wednesday night at the headquarters of TaskForce Prevention and Community Services, a community program for LGBTQ+ and HIV-positive youth Redd was involved with, as WLS-TV reported.
“Redd, known to her friends as Barbie, should be alive today,” wrote Illinois Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on September 11. “While the investigation continues, I’m sending love and light to her family and all who love her as they mourn her loss. Black trans lives matter. Redd’s life mattered.”
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.
