Remy Fennell, a Black transgender woman in her 20s, was shot to death on April 15 in Charlotte, NC while attending the Sleep Inn on North Tryon Street. Her death is at least the 15th violent death of a transgender or gender non-conforming person in the US in 2021. 

     ¨The backbone of the entire transgender community is black trans-women,¨ junior Ruen Ny said. 

    The violence against LGBTQ+ people in the US has been occurring for decades. Queer people are highly overrepresented as victims of hate crimes given the number of LGBTQ+ people in the population, and this is especially true of hate crimes against African-American transgender women says ABC News.

     “We can never move and live in certain spaces without it being some type of negative connotation against us, meaning if we talk a certain way or we look a certain way there is always thought of harm to us,¨ freelance model, social media influencer, and activist Enoch Brooks said. 

     Many deaths of black transgender women go unreported because victims are misgendered in the media. Police reports and media often refer to victims by “deadnaming” them or using their birth name, rather than using their current name, making it more difficult to track their deaths.

     “The black transgender women community (already being a fairly small population in the United States) is generally under constant attack and full of violence and narration, and it’s something that needs to be discussed,” activist Nick Davis said.

     Activists across the country have marched in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in late May 2020, sparking discussions about racial injustice and inequality. Simultaneously, a growing call for more inclusion of African-American members in the LGBTQ+ community.

     ¨Especially in America black trans women have a lot of things going against them because America does have a racist past,¨ Ny said. 

     African-American transgender women not only encounter high rates of gender-based violence (GBV) but also race-based violence says BMC Public Health. However, little is understood about factors that shape transphobic hate crimes and racial/ethnic variation in these experiences. 

     “Black transgender women are a group of human beings who especially deserve our attention due to the marginalization and oppression they face in society on account of their racial identity and gender.¨ Davis said.

     African-American transgender women in America are far more likely than most other people to experience serious hate crimes, in the form of everything from extreme poverty to violent murder. 41% of Black trans people have been homeless, and nearly half of the Black trans population has attempted suicide. Police brutality has been an infliction on the African-American community on a myriad amount of occasions, says Harvard Civil Rights.

     ¨The hate crimes against black transgender women have negatively impacted the lives and livelihood of black trans women in America or across the world in such a negative way,¨ Brooks said. 

     Black transgender Americans have been fighting this abuse for years, dating back as early as the 1960s when Marsh P. Johnson threw the first brick of protest at the Stonewall Inn in New York City, sparking the beginning of the gay rights movement. Johnson, unfortunately, died on July 6, 1992.

     ¨The murders of black transgender women are a very pervasive phenomenon, but also a very underreported one as well. This year alone there have been 38 black trans women murdered in the United States. However, the coverage of such murders is often unsubstantial,¨ Davis said.