“We need everyone to speak up, affirm that Black Trans Lives Matter and take action now in order to end this violence,” Cooper added. “Jaida had family, friends and a community who cared about her and loved her, and our hearts go out to them.”
Even though Luscious was killed four days after Peterson, Peterson’s death took much longer to gain media attention — mainly because Peterson was initially deadnamed and misgendered in police reports and media coverage. Local papers corrected her name and pronouns after friends reached out.
Unfortunately, this is a fate to which high numbers of murdered trans people are subjected. A 2018 ProPublica investigation found police departments identified trans victims by their deadnames in 87% of trans homicide cases.
In this way, Peterson’s death exemplifies the difficulty in identifying trans people who are killed. When victims are misgendered and deadnamed in police reports and the media, it can be difficult for family and community to find out about the deaths of their loved ones. Deadnaming a trans person in death can also be alienating to loved ones and detrimental to the investigation.
HRC, which tracks incidents of fatal violence against trans and gender nonconforming people, reported 44 known killings in 2020 — a record high. And this year is shaping up to be even deadlier: Twice as many trans people have lost their lives to violence in 2021 than at the same point last year.
Black and Latina trans women, who are experiencing what advocates term an “epidemic” of violence, account for the majority of these deaths.
This ongoing crisis is only exacerbated by anti-trans legislation pushed by North Carolina lawmakers, who have filed bills in 2021 seeking to criminalize gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth and ban trans athletes from playing on the sports team that matches their gender. These efforts come 5 years after the passage of the state’s notorious HB2 “bathroom bill,” which barred trans people from using public restrooms that match their gender.
While HB 2 was ultimately overturned, its legacy lives on in these bills which seek to control trans youths’ bodies both medically and socially.
However, Democratic lawmakers in the state are fighting the push with their own slate of pro-LGBTQ+ legislation. This year they have introduced a bill that, if passed, would prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in areas like employment and education, along with bills that would fully repeal HB 2, ban the LGBTQ+ “panic” defense, and outlaw conversion therapy for minors.
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