Content warning: This article contains details about anti-trans violence.
The murder of a Black transgender woman in Richmond, Virginia marks the 39th trans homicide of 2020, which has proven to be the worst year on record for violence against trans and gender nonconforming people.
During the early morning hours on Monday, Chae’Meshia Simms was found in a car that had crashed into a garage in an alley. Simms, who was in her 30s, had been fatally shot and was pronounced dead on site, according to local NBC affiliate WWBT. Many other details are still unknown as police continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding her tragic death.
It is not yet known whether or not Simms’ murder was the result of hate violence, as her killer and a motive hasn’t yet been determined. The local medical examiner will make a final call on the cause and manner of death.
Simms’ murder comes just days after LGBTQ+ communities commemorated the annual observance of the Trans Day of Remembrance, which honors the memories of transgender and gender nonconforming people whose lives have been lost due to acts of violence against the community. Zakia McKensey, executive director of the advocacy organization Nationz Foundation, said LGBTQ+ locals are mourning yet another community member taken.
“The transgender community is heavy, we are saddened, and we are also furious because every week there is a trans woman who is murdered across this country and it really needs to stop,” said Zakia McKensey In a statement to WWBT.
On Trans Day of Remembrance itself, yet another transgender woman was murdered. Asia Foster, a 22-year-old Black transgender woman from Houston, Texas, worked as a cashier at Krispy Kreme and also made additional income by styling locs and braiding, according to her Facebook page. Foster’s body was found on the side of a local road, inflicted with multiple gunshot wounds.
Her death marked the 38th known such killing of a trans or gender nonconforming person this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The estimate is likely not comprehensive, as incidents of anti-trans violence often go unreported or misreported, including cases where victims have been misgendered or identified by their birth-assigned names.
HRC, which has been releasing tracking reports on violence against trans people since 2015, said in a statement that the organization is “mourning Chae’Meshia along with her friends and family.”
“Although I did not know Chae’Meshia personally, she was from my hometown, and her death impacts the trans and gender nonconforming community everywhere,” said Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for HRC’s Transgender Justice Initiative. “We are continuing to see a devastating rate of violence against trans and gender nonconforming people in the United States, especially against Black and Brown trans women, and it must be stopped. It takes all of us to speak up and take action to end this violence.”
Recently released analysis from Everytown for Gun Safety shows that three out of four homicides involving transgender people in the United States was gun-related — a tally that now includes Simms’ death. Out of 109 murders of transgender people they’ve tracked since 2017, 72% lost their lives from gunshot wounds.
Globally, the plague of violence against transgender and gender nonconforming people is just as dire. According to data gathered by Transrespect Versus Transphobia Worldwide (TvT), a research arm of the advocacy network Transgender Europe, at least 350 transgender and gender-diverse people were murdered between the beginning of October 2019 and the end of September 2020, the period evaluated annually through their Trans Murder Monitoring project.
The total represents a 6% increase in reported murders from their count in 2019, when 331 trans and gender non-conforming people lost their lives due to hate violence.
Advocacy groups say these numbers, along with the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, highlight how the most marginalized people in the trans community, such as Black women and women of color, are at the highest risk of violence.
“Black transgender women and femmes hold the solutions to end this deadly epidemic of violence. This moment demands that we center their wisdom and experience, rather than rely on an increased investment in and reliance on law enforcement and the criminal legal system,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of Transgender Law Center, in a statement. “Chae’Meshia Simms is not a number. She was loved, and the pain of her death reverberates through our communities.”
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