Trans United Fund, the recently formed political advocacy organization, will join Casa Ruby, TWOCC, Baltimore Transgender Alliance and others this Friday, April 22 at 6 p.m. at the Montgomery County City Council (100 Maryland Avenue, Rockville) to honor the life of Keyonna Blakeney, a 22-year-old trans woman who was brutally murdered on April 16, 2016.
The murder of Blakeney is one of several reported recently. Last week, just a few months after anti-LGBT advocates successfully worked to repeal Houston’s Equal Rights Ordinance, 34-year-old transgender woman Shante Thompson was fatally shot in Houston.
“The endemic of violence against trans people continues unabated, and we fear could only increase given the viscious attacks on trans people nationwide by anti-trans politician and organizations,” said Ruby Corado, Executive Director at Casa Ruby LGBT Community Center in Washington, DC. “We all must take a stand to hold the police, public officials and the media accountable and do their jobs investigating and reporting this murder and others,” continued Corado. “We will continue to advocate for greater protections and resources for our trans family,” concluded Corado.
Most recently, researchers identified a four-year trend in which trans women and LGBTQ people of color experienced a greater risk of homicide than LGBTQ people and HIV-affected communities as a whole, according to the report. There were 20 homicides in 2015, according to NCAVP’s data, with 80 percent being people of color and 11 were transgender women of color.
