As LGBTQ+ Pride month drew to a close, six Black trans women were found dead in a brutal nine-day stretch. Between June 25 and July 3, the bodies of Brayla Stone, Merci Mack, Shaki Peters, Draya McCarty, Tatiana Hall, and Bree Black were all discovered. Each of the victims was between the ages of 17 and 32 at the time of their death, although McCarty’s age has yet to be reported by the media.
In total, at least 22 trans women, the vast majority of whom were Black, have now died as a result of violence in 2020.
If this rapid pace continues through the year, 2020 will set a record for violence against the transgender community. At least 27 trans and gender-nonconforming folks were killed in all of 2019, according to the Human Rights Campaign. By the time the last of these women was found, we were only three days into the second half of the year.
The latest killings to be reported are the those of Shaki Peters, Draya McCarty, and Bree Black. Little remains known about the passing of Tatiana Hall, a 22-year-old Irvington, New Jersey resident, after reports of her June 29 death began circulating on social media last week.
The bodies of McCarty and Peters, both from Louisiana, were identified in the Baton Rouge area. Peters, who was found on the side of a road on July 1, was both deadnamed and misgendered by local law enforcement in a press release announcing her death. Louisiana Trans Advocates, a community group based in Baton Rouge, also drew public attention to the death of another Black trans woman, Draya McCarty, on the last day of Pride month.
Though McCarty’s death has yet to be ruled a homicide by police, Louisiana Trans Advocates claims the St. Helena Parish Sheriff’s Office — the same department investigating Peters death — has not provided adequate information about her case to the public, nor to McCarty’s family.
“Amite and Louisiana leaders must speak out against these killings, against the ongoing, systemic devaluation of trans people that pervades our media and politics, and against the institutional racism that places almost all of this burden on trans women of color,” the Louisiana Trans Advocates said in a statement. “As we mourn the loss of Shaki and Draya, we must double down our efforts to ensure that all trans people across the state have access to safety.”
Two days after Peters was found dead, Bree Black was shot and killed outside of her apartment in Pompano Beach, Florida on July 3. Local media initially misidentified Black, while the local sheriff’s office has consistently deadnamed her, citing her family’s preference to use the name she was given at birth. In the aftermath of Black’s passing, local advocates organized a vigil and protest in front of City Hall in Pompano Beach to mourn her loss and also bring greater awareness to the epidemic of trans murders.
According to HRC, Florida is tied with Texas as the state with the highest number of fatal acts of trans violence. There were 16 deaths in each state between the years of 2013 and 2019. This year, Tony McDade, a Black trans man, was fatally shot and killed by police in Tallahassee. Over a month since his killing, the Tallahassee Police Department continues to withhold the name of the officer who shot McDade.
These tragic deaths follow those of Rem’mie Fells and Riah Milton, who were each killed within 24 hours of one another in June. They were two of four trans women killed during Pride Month — along with Brayla Stone, a 17-year old Black trans teen, and Merci Mack, who was shot to death in Dallas just days later. Muhlaysia Booker and Chynal Lindsey were murdered in Dallas a year earlier, and two others, Nino Acox Jackson and Karla Patricia Flores-Pavón, have been found dead in Texas’ third largest city since 2016.
