August 14, 2015 Wasn't A Good Day For Black Trans Folks

Yesterday, August 14, 2015 will go down in the history of our US trans community and our trans rights movement as a very tough day for us. We had announcements of two more trans younglings in Detroit murdered in Amber Monroe and Ashton O'Hara. We had in North Carolina the announcement that the remains of Angel Elisha Walker had been found after she disappeared 10 months ago. And we are also trying to confirm the death of Kandis Capri in Phoenix.

The infuriating thing about all these cases that adds to the pain of their losses is that all of them were under 30 years of age, with the exception of Kandis, who is 35..

The ray of sunshine in those dark clouds of despair is that in two of the cases. the perpetrators are sitting in jail awaiting further action from law enforcement.

We are in a human rights war we didn't start, but have no choice but to fight it and win. At stake is our humanity and our human rights, and like all wars, unfortunately there are causalities.

We take a moment to mourn our dead, dry our tears, comfort those who loved our fallen sisters and then steel ourselves for what we know we must do. We must fight tooth and nail for a better world for our trans kids, trans kind and all humanity so that we aren't having days like August 14, 2015 ever again.

We will do what we Black transfolks have always done. We will fight with every fiber of our being for our lives, our humanity, our human rights and our ultimate freedom from the tyranny that other misguided people wish to impose on us.

‪#‎BlackTransLivesMatter‬. They always have, always will, and they are worth fighting for.


TransGriot Note:  A White House We The People petition created by Fran Watson of Houston is calling for the federal government to do a formal investigation into the unacceptable levels of murders of trans POC people.  It needs 100K signatures by September 10 to get a formal White House response and to date as of the time I wrote this post it has only 818 signatures.  

Unacceptable when we are looking at a crisis in our community.  Trans women of color are being killed and nobody seems to care about doing something to solve the problem,

If you really care about Black trans people and aren't paying lip service to it, I ask that you not only sign this petition on behalf of the people no longer here, but pass it around your influence circle and urge them to sign it too.

Here's the link


TransGriot Note2:  Did confirm that 35 year old Kandis Capri was shot to death on Tuesday.