Trudy Ring

Thousands of transgender and nonbinary people — and their allies — will gather in Washington, D.C., Saturday for the National Trans Visibility March. The march, which has been held annually since 2019, focuses on the need for trans visibility in politics as well as society at large. Trans people need to support politicians who support them, contact elected officials, and get involved in grassroots campaigns, the march website notes. This year’s march will also highlight the need for intersectionality of HIV prevention and education with broader social justice concerns. Participants will emphasize the need for comprehensive sex education that includes HIV prevention as well as culturally competent, trans-inclusive […]

Vanity Williams, a 34-year-old Black transgender woman who had recently started nursing school, was shot to death August 3 in the lobby of her apartment building in Houston. Williams’s friends are remembering her fondly, and they say they don’t know why anyone would want to kill her. But Tristian Sanders, 26, a man who police say was known to Williams, was arrested a week later and charged with murder. She was found in the lobby suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Williams had entered nursing school with the goal of opening a medical spa. She was an Air Force veteran who was dedicated to […]

Kenji Spurgeon, a 23-year-old Black transgender woman, was shot to death shortly before 12:30 a.m. July 1 in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, shortly after Pride Month ended. Her death is just now being widely reported. A candlelight vigil was held last Wednesday at the AIDS Memorial Pathway to honor Spurgeon and other Black trans people lost to gun violence, The Seattle Times reports. “I think we as a community and as an organization failed Kenji,” Jaelynn Scott, executive director of the Lavender Rights Project, which organized the vigil, told the Times. “Our particular calls to action are that we need the city of Seattle, the state of Washington, […]

Yella Clark, 45, an incarcerated Black transgender person, was killed in a fight with other inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, La., in April. Clark’s trans identity is just being widely reported now. Clark had been deadnamed and misgendered in local reports, notes a recent press release from the Human Rights Campaign. There isn’t conclusive information as to Clark’s pronoun use, so HRC used they/them pronouns. Clark had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and was taking female hormones. Clark died April 2, shortly after prison officials broke up the fight between Clark and the other inmates, according to The Shreveport-Bossier City Advocate (no relation to this publication), a […]

Tayy Dior Thomas, a 17-year-old transgender girl, was shot to death May 7 in Mobile, Ala., and the suspect is a man who her family says she had been dating. Police found her body about 3:30 a.m. in the front yard of a home after responding to a report of shots fired in the area, according to TV station WALA.A vehicle had crashed into the house as well. Police arrested Carl Washington Jr., 20. He is charged with murder. He pleaded not guilty this week and was denied bond. Most news reports, including the WALA one, misgendered and deadnamed Thomas, but her family […]

If Donald Trump wins the presidency in November, he will reverse President Joe Biden’s transgender protections “on day one” of a new Trump administration, the Republican nominee said Friday. Trump made the remark on Kayal & Company, a right-wing radio talk show in Philadelphia. “The world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now,” he said, referring to “men playing in women’s sports,” among other transphobicthings. Cohost Dawn Stensland raised the issue of “biological boys” in girls’ locker rooms as a result of the Biden administration’s recent rule on the enforcement of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the law banning sex discrimination in federally funded educational […]