Culture

After Muhlaysia Booker's Murder, Activists Call For Action


It was less than a month ago that a mob violently beat a 23-year-old woman named Muhlaysia Booker in broad daylight. This weekend, Dallas police announced that Booker had been found dead, the fifth trans woman of color to be murdered in the US so far this year — that we know of.

The tragic violence comes at a time of escalating attacks against transgender Americans, particularly women of color.

In last month’s attack, a viral video shows a crowd of onlookers watching as a man police identified as Edward Thomas beats Booker to the ground as bystanders shout homophobic slurs. Moments earlier, Thomas and Booker had been involved in a minor fender-bender. Following an angry verbal confrontation, someone in the crowd offered Thomas $200 to assault Booker.

She was hospitalized with a concussion, fractured wrist, and facial fractures.

In the ensuing days, the video gained notoriety and police recognized and arrested Thomas during an unrelated interaction. He was subsequently released on a $75,000 bond.

Dallas’ queer community rallied around Booker in the weeks that followed, with local organizers securing her temporary housing, medical services, and legal support. The incident galvanized a push for more protections for trans people, and National Black Trans Advocacy Conference Founder Monica Roberts traveled to Austin to ask lawmakers to pass HB 1513, a bill to add gender identity to the James Byrd Hate Crimes Act.

The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee never voted on the bill, and the current session is nearly concluded, so it will not become law this year.

Following lawmakers’ inaction, Booker was found this weekend at 7 AM, “lying facedown in the street, deceased from homicidal violence,” according to police.

Though there is no evidence to link Thomas to the killing, he was free on bond at the time and police have said that they don’t know his whereabouts.

“I remember how I felt last month when she was attacked in Dallas,” wrote Charlotte Clymer, director of communications at the Human Rights Campaign, in an email interview with them. “When she had the courage and conviction to speak out at a rally following the assault she experienced, it gave me hope in a way that not much else has. She demonstrated strength. She gave us all strength in that moment. In light of that, her death feels visceral.”

Violence against trans people has been on the rise in the United States in the last few years, with most victims being black women. According to the Human Rights Campaign, in 2018, there were 26 documented cases of a trans person being killed; in 2017, it was 29.

So far this year, there have been at least five trans people killed in the US, all of them black women — although the number may actually be higher, as police do not always correctly acknowledge victims’ gender. A woman in Philadelphia named Michelle Simone was shot and pronounced dead Sunday, marking two murders due to anti-trans violence just this weekend. Earlier this year, Dana Martin was found dead along a road in Montgomery, Alabama; Claire Legato was shot and killed in Cleveland; and Ashanti Carmon was shot in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

“Until I leave this Earth, I’m going to continue on loving her in my heart, body, and soul,” said Carmon’s fiancé, Philip Williams, in a statement. “She did not deserve to leave this Earth so early.”

According to research by HRC, trans people face disproportionate danger due to a confluence of factors; generally speaking, anti-transgender stigma compounds with denial of opportunities, leading to increased risk.



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