Questioning Transphobia

Another name for TDOR:

AURORA | A week after Aimee Wilcoxson was found dead in her north Aurora home, her friends say they still have questions about the transgender woman’s death.

“None of it makes sense to us,” said Imani Latif, executive director of It Takes A Village, the nonprofit organization where Wilcoxson worked.

More than 30 friends of Wilcoxson gathered Wednesday night near It Takes a Village at East Colfax Avenue and Lima Street to remember the woman who they say loved to laugh, loved Madonna and who advocated for other transgender women who, like her, had been diagnosed with HIV.

Wilcoxson, 34, had been living as a woman for more than 10 years, friends say.

Police found Wilcoxson dead in her home in the 1600 block of Lima Street on Nov. 3.

Police aren’t releasing many details about the case, but said investigators believe Wilcoxson took her own life.

“Detectives feel that all the evidence in the case points to a suicide,” said Aurora police spokesman Detective Bob Friel.

Friel said police are waiting for a toxicology exam from the Adams County Coroner’s office, which could take up to six weeks to complete.

The coroner’s office has ruled the cause of death “undetermined” and is waiting on toxicology results, said Adams County Coroner Jim Hibbard.

But Wilcoxson’s friends say she was a happy person with a lot to look forward to and wouldn’t have killed herself. They say she was murdered.

“We think there was foul play,” Latif said.

Latif said one of Wilcoxson’s neighbors found her dead in her bed Nov. 3. The neighbor said there was broken furniture in the home and that there was blood on the mattress where Wilcoxson lay, Latif said.

Friel said police can’t comment specifically about those claims and reiterated that evidence in the case points to a suicide.

Latif said investigators told Wilcoxson’s friends that the blood was from Wilcoxson’s body decomposing and that she likely overdosed on pills.

But Latif argues that there wasn’t enough time for the body to decompose — friends spoke to her Sunday and her body was found Monday. And, she said, Wilcoxson had been followed home before and complained about “tweakers” hanging out around her home, Latif said.

Wilcoxson’s friends say they believe she was beaten to death, though they don’t know by who or why.

Hibbard, the Adams County coroner, said there were no obvious signs of trauma to Wilcoxson’s body and that if anyone knows more about her death, they need to contact police.

Latif said Wilcoxson also wasn’t the type to kill herself.

She said Wilcoxson was diagnosed with terminal cancer early this year and that one of the things that bothered her most was that she wouldn’t be alive to see Madonna play at the Pepsi Center this month.

When doctors told her she had been misdiagnosed, the Madonna concert was one of the things Wilcoxson was looking forward to most, Latif said.

“We know that if she was going to commit suicide, she wouldn’t have done it a week before the Madonna concert,” she said.

I’m sucking on adding commentary, but I wanted to point people to this story.

Monica Roberts has an update regarding the trans woman whose body was recovered from the American River in Sacramento.

Per the quoted news story, her death has been upgraded from “no foul play” to “suspicious.”

Because of all those skinny-dipping trans women who haven’t had surgery yet, yes?

From the Denver Post:

By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 09/27/2008 10:51:34 PM MDT

BRIGHTON — Angie Zapata’s life was becoming more complicated and dangerous by the day.

As she neared her 19th birthday, she needed to shave daily to keep up appearances. Her Adam’s apple was growing larger, an emerging tip-off that Angie was not exactly whom she claimed to be.

She was living in Greeley away from her protective older sister, Monica, and other family members for the first time. The striking, 6-foot-tall Latina began running with a bad crowd that sold drugs.

Angie was restless. She needed money for cosmetology school and for counseling to prepare her for hormone treatments so her breasts would develop.

“Every day, I was afraid for my sister,” said Monica Zapata. “The world, the way it is, most people wouldn’t accept who she was.”

Born J***** Zapata, Angie wanted to live and love as a transgender female.

Her quest for a normal life on her terms ended in July, when she was beaten to death in her one-bedroom, $300-a-month apartment.

Her alleged assailant, 31-year-old Allen Andrade of Thornton, met Angie on a dating website. He grew suspicious while looking at photographs of Angie in her apartment, according to Greeley police. He confronted her about her sexual status; she allegedly said: “I’m all woman.” Then he grabbed her crotch and felt a penis, police said.

Enraged, he first hit Angie with his fists. Then he used a fire extinguisher, hitting her up to five times, prosecutors said.

He covered her body with a blanket and left the apartment, taking a credit card belonging to Monica Zapata as well as Monica’s 2003 PT Cruiser.

Andrade faces first-degree murder and felony hate-crime charges, among others. In recorded conversations made public at Andrade’s preliminary hearing this month, he described the killing in stark terms. He said he “snapped” when he learned of Angie’s biological status and told his girlfriend, “What’s done is done.”

Andrade also told police “gay things need to die” and that he “killed it.”

There were plenty of men who found Angie attractive. Her skin was flawless and her hair, dark and flowing.

“Even without makeup, she looked like a girl, a gorgeous girl,” said another sister, Stephanie Zapata.

Angie spent hours primping, even before she reported to work as a shift manager at a local fast-food restaurant.

When she went out, she wore low-cut dresses with high skirts and size-10 pumps. “She was conceited about her looks; she always wanted to look good,” Stephanie said.

Her heart could be broken easily. She recently met a man she liked, but he wouldn’t commit because of her transgender status.

“She said she only wanted him to take her out and show her off, but he said if people found out about them, they would hurt them,” Monica said. “She said to me, ‘I’m never going to be happy.’ ”

Angie clung to her family, especially her nieces and nephews. She had a great fondness for 2-year-old Diego, her godson.

“She would buy them name-brand clothing and definitely Nike shoes. Even if she had a few dollars left, she would spend it on them,” said her friend and transgender mentor, Kitty DeLeon.

At age 5 or 6, Angie showed signs that she was uncomfortable in her masculine skin. She draped towels over her head to look more like a girl, and she quickly dropped out of sports such as soccer and baseball in favor of fixing her sisters’ hair and dabbling in makeup.

“When (our mom) cut her hair, she cried and cried because she wanted it to grow long,” Monica said.

Angie said she was molested as a child by an older relative, added Monica, and she used that to justify her feelings.

“She said that if she could attract men like that, maybe she was meant to be a woman,” Monica said.

To please her mother, Angie dressed as a boy. Once at her elementary school, she would change into girls clothing and wear makeup.

She was taunted for her looks, and it led to altercations.

“She fought two boys once and beat them up and said, ‘See, that’s what it feels like to be beaten up by a fag,’ ” Monica said.

Angie’s death was part of a rash of at least 13 violent hate crimes committed across the country in June and July.

All were aimed at gays, lesbians and transgender individuals, said Avy Skolnik, coordinator of national and statewide programs for the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

The incidents — including Angie’s death — fall on the heels of the Feb. 12 shooting of 15-year-old Lawrence “Larry” Fobes King at a junior high school in Oxnard, Calif. King allegedly was targeted because he began showing up to school wearing women’s accessories and clothing, high heels and makeup.

King allegedly was shot twice in the head by a fellow student, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney.

“When someone finds out that someone else is transgender, that does not justify an assault, certainly not murder,” Skolnik said.

But Andrade’s defense attorney sees it in a slightly different way. Annette Kundelius argued in her client’s preliminary hearing that Angie deceived Andrade into thinking she was biologically a female.

When he discovered the truth, he reacted violently but without premeditation, said Kundelius, who asked the presiding judge to lower the charge to second-degree murder.

“At best, this is a case about passion,” Kundelius said. “When she smiled at him, that was a highly provoking act.”

Kundelius employed a classic defense-attorney tactic known as “trans-shock,” Skolnik said. “It’s simply used by lawyers to play off the bias of jurors.”

Prosecutor Robb Miller said Andrade could have reacted like most people in the same situation — admit an embarrassing mistake and move on. “He could have lived with it,” Miller said, “but something inside him wouldn’t let him.”

Weld County District Judge Marcelo Kopcow agreed, refusing to lower the first-degree murder charge and erase the felony bias charge. The evidence, Kopcow said, clearly showed Andrade’s rage toward Angie as well as gays.

It was at age 15 that Angie officially came out as a transgender female. About then, she also met DeLeon, a transgender female who also grew up in Fort Lupton.

DeLeon, now in her 30s, sensed an inner strength in Angie that needed to be nurtured. “I wanted her to live a normal life and not a sheltered life,” DeLeon said. “I told her, ‘You know, Angie, there will always be people who will tell you you are evil and wrong. But we can’t let people tell us who we are.’ ”

Later, as Angie’s social life flourished, friends said a cellphone seemed glued to her ear.

She would talk to boys but never go out with them until they had been vetted by her sisters. She also disclosed her status to every suitor, family said. Some of her prospective dates went away angry, but others were happy to stay around, Monica said.

“She didn’t have to lie about who she was,” Monica said. “Plenty of guys liked her.”

But school became tougher for her with conflicts and fights. “She always had to protect herself at school, and it became too much of a hassle for her,” Monica said. “I think that became her excuse to quit.”

She dropped out of Fort Lupton High School in about her junior year and went to work full time, babysitting Monica’s children for $600 a month.

“She started hanging out with some bad people, people who weren’t good for her,” said Monica.

What’s left of Angie’s life — her dresses and shoes and other mementos — is displayed in a basement room at Monica’s home in Brighton.

“She loved people, and she loved going out and looking good,” Monica said. “That was important to her.”

This: “She also disclosed her status to every suitor.” To those of you who insisted upon blaming her because you believed Andrade’s story: Fuck. You.

This is mostly a sympathetic piece, but I’m going to be mean: What’s with the emphasis on her clothes and makeup? Oh, right, I totally forgot the rules for portraying trans women as hyperfeminine and hypersexualized in the media.

Also, that bit above about her trachea:

As she neared her 19th birthday, she needed to shave daily to keep up appearances. Her Adam’s apple was growing larger, an emerging tip-off that Angie was not exactly whom she claimed to be.

Angie was exactly who she claimed to be: A woman. According to the above, she disclosed to anyone who might have been a romantic interest. But this sentence betrays something else: The cissexist attitude that trans people aren’t really who we say we are, that we’re deceivers, wolves in women’s skin. This is a backhanded justification of Andrade’s defense: That Angie’s smile was provocation to kill her.

Also:

Born J***** Zapata, Angie wanted to live and love as a transgender female.

I can’t speak for Angie, and we can’t ask her, but I’d say that if her experiences were anything like mine, she wanted to live as a woman, and “transgender” only in the process for getting there.

It’s also downright insensitive and callous to print her birth name. She wanted to be known as Angie, which is why she changed her name. As with the adam’s apple comment, this only serves to undermine that her womanhood, by asserting that her pre-transition history somehow means she was really a boy.

Also:

Angie said she was molested as a child by an older relative, added Monica, and she used that to justify her feelings.

This is completely irrelevant. There’s no evidence that being trans has anything to do with being molested as a child. Gender identity is not fluid in that way. There is mounting evidence of the possibility of a biological cause for transsexualism. It is irresponsible to link child molestation to being transgender, and plays up the idea that trans people are somehow victims of our condition. It also has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of your story.

I’m so tired of the press – is it that hard to treat dead trans women with respect? I know you made a good effort, but you focused on her sex life, on how long it took her to apply her makeup, and the hemlines of her skirts and dresses. What does this have to do with remembering her? If you wrote about any other murdered woman, would you fetishistically and sensationalistically focus on what she liked to wear in her day-to-day life? Insinuate that she was really a man?

Via Angry White Kid:

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!

Version en espanol sigue despues del link.

9/27 UPDATE: Friends, there have been many developments in the past two days. More information will become available soon, but it can be confirmed that through the hard work of activists in San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca, and Mexico City, Sally’s killer, Omar Yoguez Singu, has been identified and arrested in Mexico City, and transferred to Oaxaca. People here are confident that what happened to Sally was not “political” in the sense that it did not happen as a result of her political activities. Of course violence against women is very much a tragic political aspect of life under patriarchy.  And regardless of the reason, it does not make her murder any less appalling or the loss any less severe. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section. I will post more when it is available. Sally Grace, presente! Ahora, y siempre!

Please read and sign the below call to action. The Spanish version follows my translation. This event is beyond tragic.

Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca.
Thursday, September 25

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!

Brother and sisters,

Our hearts are full of sadness and rage because our sister Sali was brutally raped and murdered 20 minutes from San Jose del Pacifico and up to this moment the Oaxacan Attorney General’s Office, as is its custom, is not doing anything regarding the fact that there exist witnesses who have information to identify those responsible.

Marcella Sali Grace was born in the United States, with a big heart in solidarity with just causes. She had many friends because she was always inclined to help, using her artistic talents to paint a banner or a wall or doing Arabic dance to raise funds for the struggle, or putting on punk shows, or giving self-defense courses for women because she knew very well how the men accosted them. This was one of her struggles, that women were free and respected. Sali was so involved in the struggle that she was an international accompanier of brothers and sisters who felt harassed by the bad government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

Unfortunately, on September 24, a woman’s body was found with the physical characteristics of Sali, in a deserted cabin twenty minutes from the village of San Jose del Pacifico and at the moment when a village member went to feed some dogs around that area, he was struck by a fetid odor coming from this cabin and notified the municipal authorities of the village, who proceeded to remove the body which was already in a state of decay, and after these events, they did not give any more information to the people in the village.

Yesterday, companera Julieta Cruz (who knew Sali was headed for San Jose del Pacifico) was informed that a young, foreign woman was at in the Miahuatlan amphitheatre, where she went, and where she recognized the body of Sali because of the tattoos she had, as her face was unrecognizable. Julieta thinks it is because of burns, but it doesn’t explain why the rest of her body has less visible damage. When we asked for the case number we were denied as well from seeing the results of the autopsy, as they argued with us that because we weren’t relatives they couldn’t give us any information.

Due to her solidarity work with the popular struggle of the people of Oaxaca, in other struggles in the world and against the racism on Mexico’s border with the U.S., on different occasions and to different people, Sali mentioned that recently in Oaxaca she had suffered political persecution and surveillance. This makes us think that her cowardly murder is related to the widespread repression against the social movement and directed particularly at international observers. Because of this, we don’t dismiss that the intellectual authors are the same who ordered the repression against the people of Oaxaca in their struggle for justice and freedom.

In the face of these bloody events, and for the brutal cruelty used against companera Sali, we don’t disregard that this could be a clear message directed at all the people of Oaxaca, as well as the companeros in solidarity from different parts of the world; we say this based on the recent national and international news which says that “APPO members were the ones who killed U.S. journalist Bradley Roland Will” and as there is no justice in Oaxaca, we worry that the distortion of information could interfere in procuring true justice for our companera and the clear bureaucratic slowness with which the involved authorities are already treating this investigation.

In the face of these lamentable events, WE DEMAND:

The immediate speeding up of the investigations.

The immediate clarification of the facts.

Punishment for the intellectual and material murderers.

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!

Enough is enough with of the murders, violence and hatred against women who fight for justice!

We ask you to sign on (at the email indicated) to this demand for justice and to become a part of the urgent activities to demand the clarification of these cowardly acts.

rebeldiasentrelazadas@yahoo.com
Information: (01 951) 5178190 CIPO

First post here.

News story here:

Transgender Man’s Death Has Gay Community On Alert

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― The gay community is on alert this morning after the body of a transgendered man was pulled from the American River over the weekend.

The body of a transgender man was found Sunday.

Police aren’t sure if this was a hate crime.  They’re waiting for autopsy results to learn more.

Meanwhile, the Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center is sending out emails, warning people to be careful in the area.

Because we don’t really have a dead trans woman until her identity’s been totally erased. Fuck you, CBS13.

There’s also a video at the page linked above. Choice quotes via Nexyjo:

how many ways is this report offensive? “transgender man”? “death is suspicious”? “could be a hate crime”? “looks to me like it’s a female”. “looks can be deceiving”. yeah, isn’t that exactly what us trans people do – deceive.

on so it goes. watch the video for more ugliness.

Even aside from the puerile offensiveness of this story, one thing that’s bothering me is the sense I’m getting of “it’s a hate crime” or “there was no foul play,” which reminds me of how the trial over Kellie Telesford’s murder played out – that Shanniel Hyatt’s defense simply had to introduce reasonable doubt over whether Hyatt killed Kellie for being trans in order to get an innocent verdict.

Further information from the video: The trans woman is identified as Hispanic (so, another trans woman of color dead, probably murdered) and her body was found naked. Police have not yet released her name.

Justice Walks has decided that she’s going to set the agenda for trans activism:

I was informed recently that the Masons do “panty checks” to be sure that prospective members actually occupy male bodies before they are invited into the fold.

Where, oh, where are all of the trans-advocates picketing, suing, and protesting this blatant “phobia” against transmen?  Why is it that male members of Elks clubs and Freemason clubs all over the country aren’t being decried as “transphobic” when they take steps to ensure that their membership is comprised only of people in male bodies, regardless of what they may believe themselves to be in their heads?

Because, of course, Justice Walks gets to tell trans people what we’re supposed to prioritize. What causes we’re supposed to champion. Isn’t that how it works? Privileged people tell the oppressed what they’re supposed to do?

Oh, wait, that’s oppression. Justice Walks isn’t just setting an agenda for trans people, she’s making an excuse to say more bigoted things to and about trans people, and give us marching orders:

The next time some pro-genital-mutilation trans-advocate comes at me whining about that rape crisis center in Vancouver or the Michigan Women’s Music Festival, I’m going to demand proof that they are just as vehemently opposed to the “discriminatory” practices of the Masons, the Elks, and other such fraternities – collegiate, social, or professional – that require prospective members to disrobe or otherwise offer proof of their biological sex.

I can almost hear the crickets and see the tumbleweed now.

I like this idea that Justice Walks thinks her opinions about trans people are actually informed and not, say, ignorant. Surely she understands that body shaming comments like “pro-genital-mutilation” are downright oppressive. That she’s willing to claim that trans people’s genitals are not just invalid, but completely ruined. Just how much stigma can you load down on one group of people, anyway?

I don’t think that any fraternity that excludes trans men is cool for doing so, or that such behavior should be encouraged. My position has always been that trans men should be unreservedly accepted as men and trans women should be unreservedly accepted as women, and that is in all areas. And if trans men are fighting for access, I will gladly assist them in their efforts to gain access.

However, I find it deeply insulting and misogynist that Justice Walks thinks that membership in a fraternity – a social club – is somehow equivalent to women being excluded and ejected from domestic violence and rape shelters. Women go to DV and rape shelters because they’ve survived violence or rape, not because they want to socialize and network. Women go to these places for safety from those who harmed them, as well as recovery from that harm. Excluding a woman from such a space puts her at potentially deadly risk. How is this the same as being excluded from a social club?

I’m also puzzled at the idea that activism against the segregation of trans women at MichFest (which is allegedly open to all women but is really open to some women, who are apparently more equal than others) as well as work to make more DV and rape shelters accessible to trans women should be subordinated to trans men’s needs. Seriously, is Justice Walks really asking “What about the menz?”

Cis privilege does not grant you the right to to tell trans people what our priorities should be and demand that we take up the causes you believe we should take up, just for you to consider our positions to be consistent and valid. Whether or not trans people engage in protests and activism to open Freemasonry to trans men (can anyone confirm this rumor?) has absolutely no bearing on whether trans people have the right to engage in protests and activism against segregation elsewhere. Cis privilege may make you think you have that right, but that’s the nature of privilege – it actually makes you believe you’re better than people who aren’t like you for purely arbitrary reasons.

It’s up to trans people to decide where to devote our energies – whether it’s to employment and housing non-discrimination, improved access to health care, increased education for the general public, keeping hate groups from taking our civil rights away, or protesting to gain access to areas that exclude us for arbitrary and prejudiced reasons. It’s our movement, and I think we’re grown-up enough to know what we’re doing with it, whether the needs addressed are specific to trans men or trans women, or the needs are applicable to all trans people. We definitely don’t need any cissexist radical feminists who don’t even understand who we are let alone why we do what we do to set us straight.

Dr. Jillian T. Weiss posted her legal analysis of the trans panic defense at The Bilerico Project:

The gay panic defense, and its cousin, the transgender panic defense, have been criticized by many, and yet it still survives to rear its ugly head again and again. Cases in which these defenses are raised become high profile, with prominent examples such as the murders of Matthew Shepard, Brandon Teena, and Gwen Araujo. In fact, there have been a couple of legal conferences on the issue of gay panic and trans panic defenses in the past several years, in which prosecutors have sought to learn how to defeat it.

This issue is now front and center again in the Angie Zapata murder case:

“Only when Andrade grabbed at Zapata’s crotch did he discover the truth. But when she smiled at him and said, “I’m all woman,” it drove an enraged Andrade to commit murder, attorney Annette Kundelius said. “At best, this is a case about passion,” Kundelius said. “When (Zapata) smiled at him, this was a highly provoking act, and it would cause someone to have an aggressive reaction.”

This is slightly outside my usual area of research – transgender workplace issues. I’m not an experienced criminal attorney, though I’ve done some criminal work in the past. And yet, the two areas are related, in that prejudice against transgender identity is the crux of the problem in both employment law and in this criminal law situation.

In addition, as a transgender woman, I have been in private situations with men where it would have been very, very easy for me to wind up as a victim. I have had the thought on more than one occasion: Am I about to die? (Fortunately, I’m now married to a wonderful woman and we’re together forever.) So when Bil asked me for my take on the issue, I was intrigued into writing. The question I want to address is whether the Colorado judge in this case can and should ban such an argument from the trial.

Read the rest of the post at the above link.

It seems that no matter where we live or what decade we’re talking about, when the justice system concerns transwomen of color, justice is delayed, denied, and disgraceful.

Back in 1998, William Palmer, the man who killed Chanelle Pickett in Boston was given a 2 1/2 year sentence with 6 months suspended, and 5 years probation. Never mind the fact that Palmer strangled Pickett, then slept for six hours next to Chanelle’s lifeless body lying beside his bed before he turned himself in. The judge presiding over the case commented bitterly to the defendant at the time “Mr. Palmer should kiss the ground the defense counsel walks on.”

On August 12, 2002 Stephanie Thomas and Ukea Davis die in a hail of bullets on the same southeast Washington DC street corner that Tyra Hunter died due to EMT neglect. As of this writing there’s not only been no arrest, but the execution style killings aren’t even classified as a hate crime.

Never mind the fact that rumors in the community persist that the trigger men who executed the grisly crime are guys who picked up the two transwomen on dates and found out their transgender status after the fact.

. . .
Once people begin to realize that we’re human beings with hopes, dreams and lives like them, hopefully we’ll begin to see less cases of justice delayed, denied and disgraceful when it comes to transpeople of color and more cases in which justice is served.

Read the full post.

From Bird of Paradox:

Previously (link here) I wrote about the court date having been set for the preliminary hearing of the trial of Allen Ray Andrade.

He is charged with first-degree murder after deliberation, bias-motivated crime, felony motor vehicle theft and felony identity theft in the death of Angie Zapata.

That hearing took place on 18 September and, according to 9news:

A Weld County district judge ruled Thursday that there is enough evidence against a man charged with killing a transgender woman to proceed with a trial.

There is coverage of the hearing in a couple of places, but the most chilling quote is in the Greeley Tribune:

A man accused of beating a transgendered woman to death told his girlfriend in a phone call that he “snapped” and that “gay things need to die.”

The phone calls made by Allen Andrade, charged in the murder of the transgender woman Angie Zapata, while in jail to his girlfriend detailed that something bad had happened and that Andrade had made a mistake.

Andrade, 31, of Thornton expressed that he was out of control, outside himself and not a coherent person the day of the murder.

The phone calls were also laden with derogatory remarks towards homosexuals, and he stated that people in jail are scared of him because of his reputation for wielding a fire extinguisher, which is the suspected murder weapon.

“Gay things need to die”.

Things.

And this… this man – has the bare-faced cheek to say he had “made a mistake”? Damn right you made a mistake, Mr Andrade. And, no, you may not use the trans panic defence.

…*breathes*…

Helen G has the full story!

Via Monica Roberts:

I am so late on this, and I’m sorry for that. As is usual, the media tears into Nikki’s life, disrespecting her womanhood because the media is full of soulless bastards when it comes to this kind of story.

Fortunately, Monica rewrote the news properly:

Transgender woman dies from gunshot wounds after home invasion

A transgender woman shot during a home invasion dies ten days later. Detectives, of course, are treating this case as a homicide. Neighbors were afraid to talk on camera because the attackers are still on the loose. But one man said he found 29-year old Nakhia Williams lying on the ground outside her apartment on West Market Street.

Police say Williams was rushed to the hospital the morning of August 20th and died this past Saturday, the 30th. The medical examiner says Williams died from a gunshot wound, which complicated a medical condition she already had. Police say another person was home with Williams during the home invasion.

“There was possibly four black males who had forced the victim and another occupant to the ground, a lot of commotion going on,” said LMPD Detective Phil Russell.

No one is saying who this other occupant is and whether he or she was injured.

If you have any information that could help solve this case, you can call the anonymous police tipline at 574-LMPD.

And updated, because I found out way late:

Hey TransGriot readers,
As y’all know I’ve been dealing with the untimely death of a friend over the last few days and just got back home an hour ago from Nikki’s service.

I was pleased to not only see the overflow crowd of Nikki’s friends and family, we even had besides yours truly, the Louisville transgender and GLB community there in full effect.

It was hard looking at Nikki peacefully sleeping in that white casket realizing she died a few months short of her 30th birthday. There were more than a few tears shed, but simmering under the surface this morning was anger. Anger over the way she was taken from us and anger over the disrespectful way the story was covered by the local media.

BTW, had a chat with GLAAD about that. Will keep y’all updated as to what they’re hearing from WLKY and WDRB about it.

The service was a combined wake and funeral that started at 9 AM EDT with the funeral portion starting precisely at 11 AM EDT. They kept the service on a tight schedule, so unfortunately people weren’t allowed to speak.

During Rev. Barry Washington’s eulogy he talked about love and how it is the binding force that keeps this world from tearing itself apart. He also talked about the love that was in that room.

I was struck by the fact that we had an interesting contrast of people in there. Nikki’s family and friends, the GLBT community, and her mother’s U of L coworkers.

It was also interesting to note that the transwomen were dressed conservatively church service stylish, while some of the biowomen in the room were wearing jeans and t-shirts.

After the service I went home. I decided not to go to the cemetery. I’d had a rough night trying to get to sleep and Nikki not only was on my mind all day yesterday, she’s even moreso in my thoughts today.

But no more pain and suffering for our sister. She’s doing her painting and writing her poetry in heaven now.

It’s funny, but just as I wrote this line, the cloud cover that has cast an appropriately gloomy start to the day here suddenly parted to allow some rays of sunshine to beam through my window. It was predicted to be sunny and 83 today, so maybe it’ll help lighten the sense of loss I and everybody who knew and loved Nikki feels.

What will really help me is for LMPD to find, arrest, convict and permanently send to Eddyville the wastes of DNA who committed the crime.

Nikki, say hello to Tyra, Channelle, Gabrielle, Kellie, Ukea, Stephanie, Saneshia, Ebony and all our other fallen sisters for us.

We’ll see you again soon.

I hope they catch those responsible. And rest in peace, Nikki.