Tiffany Thomas, a 38-year-old black trans woman, was shot to death in Dallas, Texas, on April 24, making her the 19th known trans person to have been killed in the US this year alone. The Dallas police department said Thomas was found at a car wash and pronounced dead at the scene. The incident is being treated as a homicide but it is unclear if any suspects have been identified.
Following the news of Thomas’s death, Tori Cooper, the Human Rights Campaign’s director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, said: “Tiffany did not deserve to die — none of the transgender and gender non-conforming people who have been killed this year deserved to lose their lives. We need everyone to speak up and speak out in support of transgender people. The violence must end.”
Thomas was killed only one day after Iris Santos, a Latinx trans woman, was shot to death in Houston, Texas. Natalia ‘Smüt’ Lopez, a trans woman and drag performer, was stabbed to death on the same day as Santos by somebody she had “dated for several months”. 2020 was the deadliest year on record for trans Americans with 44 known deaths. Activists are fearful that the total deaths in 2021 will exceed the murders recorded last year.
You must be logged in to post a comment.