Lorena Escalera-One Year Later

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day that 25 year old Lorena Escalera was found dead in her Brooklyn apartment following a suspicious fire.   The model and member of the House of Xtravaganza was found during the subsequent investigation to have died by strangulation and suffocation suffered BEFORE the fire started at approximately 4 AM.  

However, the New York Times and the rest of the New York media decided to engage in an all too familiar pattern in media coverage of the deaths of POC trans women and sensationalize it. 

As Janet Mock stated about the coverage of Lorena at the time:

“As my city's and our nation's paper of record, I would expect the New York Times to treat any subject, regardless of their path in life, with dignity.”

"In Lorena Escalera's life she was so much more than the demeaning, sexist portrait they painted of girls like us. It goes beyond a ‘choice of words.’ According to the Times' limiting, harmful portrait of Lorena, she was nothing more than a ‘curvaceous’ bombshell for men to gawk at. That is not the ‘personal’ story of any woman, and until we treat trans women like human beings - in life and death - with dignity, families and struggles, our society will never see us beyond pariahs in our communities."
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It's now a year later and her killer or killers still haven't been brought to justice and the murder remains unsolved.   Lorena's friends and family want NYPD to move forward on the investigation.  

They want justice for Lorena.   So do we as her trans brothers and trans sisters.  And as the Good Doctor says, justice delayed is justice denied.   It's past time for the process to begin so that the wastes of DNA who killed her can be punished for it and justice can finally happen for Lorena and all the people who loved her.