Stephanie and Ukea-Ten Years Later

TransGriot Note: I was originally just going to publish this piece here, but decided it needed a major signal boost.   Since HuffPo Gay Voices extended me an invitation to write for them, I decided to have it posted there as well since the 10th Anniversary of the execution style killings of Stephanie Thomas and Ukea Davis and the fact their killers are still walking around free needed to be pointed out.

On August 12, 2002 on the same 50th and C Street corner in SE Washington DC in which the car accident occurred that eventually took Tyra Hunter's life due to medical transphobia, transteens Stephanie Thomas and Ukea Davis died in a hail of automatic gunfire.

Ten years later, this double murder still hasn't been solved.  It saddens me and other DC area transpeople who remember that horrific crime that it hasn't..

As I said in the 2011 post I wrote at my home blog on the 9th anniversary of this despicable murder:

These young sisters died because somebody hated them so much for transitioning that they felt they had the right to violently terminate their lives.  I don't want people or the trans community to forget what happened to these young African descended transwomen or why they are no longer here on planet Earth with us.

I also want the wastes of DNA who committed this heinous crime to be brought to justice not just for me, the trans community of DC and around the world, but Stephanie's mother as well.    .

Someone in that neighborhood knows or heard something that will facilitate the arrest and conviction of the people who did this.   They belong in jail, not walking around in society.

19 year old Stephanie and 18 year old Ukea's lives were extinguished before they even had a chance to live them.  Both of them would be approaching their thirties right now.  I wonder what dreams and aspirations they had for themselves they never got to fulfill?  What kind of contributions to our society did we lose because somebody hated Stephanie and Ukea enough to kill them for openly living their trans lives?

That's what angers me every time I contemplate their loss and the loss of every transperson to anti-trans violence.  It's also what drives me to ensure that no more mothers like Queen Washington have to witness their trans child being buried or mothers who have trans children fearing the same thing will happen to their kids.

Stephanie and Ukea, know that you ladies are not only not forgotten by the trans community and all who loved you.  The trans community in Washington DC and around the country won't rest until the people who killed you are brought to justice. 

We also won't rest until we create a world in which trans youth can come out, dream big dreams and simply live their lives just like any other cisgender kid does

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