Brayla Stone’s body was found in a car in a suburb of Little Rock, Arkansas late last month. The 17-year-old’s death is being called a homicide. She was transgender.

Stone is one of nearly 200 transgender or gender-nonconforming people who have fallen victim to fatal violence since 2013, according to the Human Rights Campaign. An HRC study titled, “A National Epidemic: Fatal Anti-Transgender Violence in the United States in 2019,” revealed that last year, at least 26 transgender or gender-nonconforming people were fatally shot or killed by other violent means. 2020 has already seen at least 21 deaths of the same nature, according to HRC.

What You Need To Know

  • Twenty-one transgender and gender nonconforming people have been killed in 2020

  • At least 26 transgender and gender nonconforming people were killed in 2019

  • Of the 26 victims in 2019, 91 percent were women, 81 percent were under the age of 30, and 68 percent lived in the South

Of the 26 victims in 2019, 91 percent were women, 81 percent were under the age of 30, and 68 percent lived in the South, according to HRC.

Ashlee Marie Preston, who is a civil rights activist and author, said she cried when she turned 36 because most Black transgender women don’t make it past age 35. She reflected on her emotions in an article for Glamour titled, “I’m a Black Trans Woman, and Celebrating My 36th Birthday Felt Like a Milestone.”

“It feels like just yesterday I was 19, so I’m having the same emotions that any 36-year-old would have around aging and what that means and becoming a full-on adult,” Preston said. “And then also, there was this feeling of grief and sadness because it’s been reported before that the estimated life expectancy of a Black trans woman is only 35 years old, and that statistic has even been called into question more so lately because we're continuing to see these murders happen to trans women who are younger and younger."

Preston said Stone’s death was a “reminder that although I beat out the statistic, we still have a lot of work to do.”

“While some of us are making progress, and we’re striving for greater heights, there are still those that are at the bottom of the societal totem pole who are plagued by socioeconomic disparity, who are plagued by social discrimination, who are the victims of institutional and structural transphobia, racism, and sexism simultaneously,” she said.

Within the trans community, Preston said there is “pervasive apathy” surrounding the violence and discrimination faced by Black trans women.

“I think that there is this false notion that the reason why Black trans women are being murdered is [that] we are somehow tricking people into believing that we’re something that we’re not,” she said. “So this idea that trans women aren’t real women, therefore however we interact in society, we are culprits for trickery and bribery and this manipulation based on who we present ourselves as.”

Black trans women face the same challenges that cisgender Black, gay, and female people do, but all at once.

“We experience all of those dynamics simultaneously, and so I think that America is starting to really understand what intersectionality means,” she said. “Intersectionality was coined by Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw, a Black woman at UCLA in 1989, and it describes multiple types of discrimination when an individual's identity overlaps with multiple marginalized groups. So the way that I typically simplify it is by saying sexism, racism, and transphobia don't line up and wait their turn, they strike simultaneously.”

Preston came to L.A. when she was 19 years old. She said she got a job, faced discrimination in the workplace, and then was fired.

“I became homeless, couldn't get into a shelter because my identity didn’t fit into the stringent, narrow construct of womanhood, and so the women's shelters wouldn't give me bed or food,” she said. “And then I was so desperate that I was willing to go to the men's shelters, but then I was deemed a disruption, so they didn't also give me bed or food. And so I turned to survival sex work as a means of providing for myself, then engaging in drug use as a social lubricant to numb myself to all of the traumatic things that happened to me in [the] throws of survival.”

Southerners on New Ground and the Transgender Law Center conducted a study in 2019 that prioritized issues impacting transgender, gender nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people in the South. Of the 135 people surveyed, 41 percent of participants and 52 percent of participants of color reported experiencing high levels of violence by law enforcement.

Preston said this is why Tony McDade, a 38-year-old Black trans man who was recently killed by law enforcement, didn’t call the police when he was attacked by several men days before his death.

“In many cases, we know that even if Tony would have gone to the authorities, we don’t feel safe or cared for because the authorities have been direct contributors to the violence that we face,” Preston said. “So again, going back to the understanding that we’re experiencing the same violence that the Black community at large experiences but compounded as Black trans people, this is the reality that we face. So we don’t have protection from our communities. We don’t have protection from law enforcement. We don’t have protection by the systems, and if anything, we see them constantly chipping away at our human rights.”

In recent weeks, after George Floyd was killed by a now-former Minneapolis police officer, Black Lives Matter protests have erupted across the world. During these marches, people have held signs that say, “Black trans lives matter too,” which Preston said is important because Black trans people need the support of the Black movement.

“I think that there has been this urban myth within the Black community that Black LGBTQ folks, trans and queer alike, don’t need the protection of Black Lives Matter because we're somehow enjoying white privilege because of our close proximity to gay white men in the LGBTQ community,” Preston said. “So not having a thorough understanding of the fact that we still experience racism, we still experience transphobia, we still experience sexism and all of the patriarchal favorites. And so I think that now that this understanding has been made clear, we're starting to see Black people in the Black community and our allies alike start to name the experiences of trans folks. Also, something that a lot of people don't know is that there are Black queer women at the helm of the Black Lives Matter movement, so there's this automatic reaction to divorce the two and separate them, but it has been a collective from the beginning.”

Preston said Black trans women have historically contributed to Black liberation.

“I know that many people don't know about Frances Thompson, who was a former Black slave in 1866 that became the first Black person to testify before a congressional committee after the Memphis Riots that were launched after losing the Civil War. And so we continue to show up in these places all the way up to Marsha P. Johnson, all the way up to Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, all the way out to those at the Black Cat and the Compton Cafeteria Riots and Cooper Do-nuts. All of these landmark examples of how Black femmes, trans and cisgender alike, continue to show up for our liberation,” Preston said. “And so I think it’s affirming to have Black trans lives centered in the LGBTQ movement because we were the ones who kicked it off. And so I think it’s a beautiful way to come full circle especially after we just had another anniversary of The Stonewall Inn.”

This year, LA Pride tried to show allyship with Black Lives Matter - Los Angeles by hosting a solidarity march in Hollywood on June 14. However, LA Pride organizers submitted a special event permit application to LAPD.

BLM - L.A. did not support LA Pride’s move to get approval from law enforcement for the march, especially after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, both of whom were killed by police officers. LA Pride organizers later apologized for not first collaborating “with enough key leaders and activists in the Black community that have been fighting on the frontlines.”

 
 
 
 
 
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On behalf of the Christopher Street West Board of Directors, we would like to reemphasize our support for the Black community. Additionally, we would like to apologize for missteps in our rush to create the June 14th solidarity march meant to rally against the systemic social injustice the Black community faces every day. In that truly well-intentioned effort, we realized that we did not first collaborate with enough key leaders and activists in the Black community that have been fighting on the frontlines. For that we offer our sincerest apologies. Furthermore, as we quickly mobilized this protest, we proceeded to approach the permitting as we would normally do with organizing the annual LA Pride Parade and directed Jeff Consoletti and JJLA to file the First Amendment permit on our behalf. In that haste, we overlooked the direct police involvement that permitting involves. We understand that clearly goes against the demands for systemic police reform. This police reform is central to the mission of ending police brutality for which so many of you are out in the streets fighting today and every day. In this, we recognize the organization’s relationship with the marginalized groups within our own community has been problematic. We are committed to listening to the Black community more closely and to truly be a better ally and collaborator in the fight to end systemic racism and oppression. As an organization, Christopher Street West is putting plans in motion to better educate ourselves to ensure our actions reflect our intentions in all future programming. Our board is continuing to meet today and in the days ahead to collaborate with Black leaders and organizations that share our desire for social justice for the Black community. The previously announced solidarity march scheduled for June 14 is currently being reevaluated through these discussions with more updates to be shared shortly. We pledge that the LGBTQ+ community will continue to speak up and speak out against racism and stand in solidarity with you on the long march to freedom and equality.

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Preston said in this instance, there’s a big difference between savior-ism and solidarity. “They’re two completely different ideals,” she said.

“Savior-ism is still coming from a place that you somehow know what we need more than we do, instead of consulting directly with us and trusting our leadership,” Preston said. “And then it also comes from a place of supremacy still, so it’s still using your power in a way that feels comfortable for you and in a way that still opposes these power dynamics of, you don’t have the power to do this, so I’m going to step in and I’m going to do it for you.”

Solidarity is standing with, not standing in for, BLM - L.A. and its mission.

“In reality, the objective should be to raise us up in a way that allows us to be self-determining and have full autonomy over our spaces and how we show up in society, right? Solidarity is more about trusting Black leadership, and it is about educating yourself, and it is about aligning your perspective and your objectives with the mission of these organizations and movements that are leaning toward Black liberation,” Preston said.

The organizers of BLM - L.A. have been focused on reducing LAPD’s budget for years. In April 2020, the group founded People’s Budget LA to further this mission.

People’s Budget LA surveyed more than 25,000 Angelenos to design its budget, which gives 45.61 percent to universal aid and crisis management, 27.61 percent to the built environment, 25.06 percent to reimagined community safety, and 1.64 percent to law enforcement and policing.

“When we talk about protest, it's not just about bringing bodies into the space. It’s about bringing the message,” Preston said. “And so the message that we have been sending is that we have to completely reform the system, and in other ways, we have to completely build brand new things. And so when you're in solidarity with Black folks, you know that because you're a part of that conversation. But if you're doing the standalone action, which oftentimes again doesn't take into consideration that we're just not out on the streets yelling just to be yelling, but we’re being strategic and thoughtful about the outcomes that we would like to see that are going to ultimately continue to save Black lives.”

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