"Our Very Existence Makes People Uncomfortable": Transphobic Violence Persists Across the Globe

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http://www.alternet.org/transphobic-violence-persists-across-globe

"Our Very Existence Makes People Uncomfortable": Transphobic Violence Persists Across the Globe and at Home


On the night of April 28, 2012, Tiffany Woods had a hard time sleeping. The program manager of Fremont-based TransVision, which provides health services to transgender clients, spent much of the night tossing and turning, so when one of her former employees, Terry Washington, called her cellphone just before 7 a.m., she didn't pick up. When more calls started coming in, Woods knew something was wrong. Washington's voicemail delivered one of the most shocking pieces of news she had ever received in her long history as a transgender advocate in the East Bay.

"I hate to disturb you, Tiffany," Woods recalled Washington saying in his message. "Brandy's been shot. And she's gone."

Not Brandy , she thought.

Brandy Martell, a 37-year-old transgender woman who had worked for Woods for four years, was shot and killed by a gunman while she and her friends, a group of transgender women, sat in a car near the intersection of 13th and Franklin streets in downtown Oakland in the early hours of the morning. By 7:40 a.m., Woods, who is also a transgender woman, was at the crime scene taking photos of Martell's body, covered with a blanket, lying on the street.

"I heard the gunshots, ran over to the car, and see her there taking her last breath," recalled Kayla Moore, a transgender woman who happened to be in the area—a popular hangout for the trans community—at the time. "I'd never experienced somebody dying in front of me." A week later, Moore, who was then involved in sex work, had an emotional breakdown and decided to get off the streets. She now works for TransVision.

[Kurovski]

1. Fear and internalised panic creates real nightmares.

I know that there will be a day when people stop phucking freaking out about human sexuality, and I also know why it persists and what holds it in place.

We all know.