Remembering Tyra Hunter

In the midst of this bruising battle to fundamentally reshape our health care system, those of us on the trans side of the spectrum definitely need to be paying attention to and help shape a positive outcome for it.

While we pay attention to the inside the beltway shenanigans of those wishing to kill the reforms at the behest of their insurance company paymasters, it's time once again to focus on another inside the beltway travesty that happened in 1995.

Today is another marking of the sad anniversary of transwoman Tyra Hunter's death.

Tyra didn't die in a hail of bullets like Stephanie Thomas and Ukea Davis would on that same Southeast DC street corner years later. Her death was preventable.

She was in a car accident at the intersection of 50th and C Street on the way to work. Because of a transphobic EMT named Adrian Williams, she is no longer walking this Earth today or doing her clients hair.

Rest in peace, Tyra. As long as TransGriot exists I'll never allow the story of what happened to you die. It's past time that my fellow African-Americans hear it and realize that their irrational faith-based hatred of transpeople carries a cost as well.