Penny Proud is one of the latest reported Black trans female victim to be murdered in the U.S. She was shot to death on Tuesday, Feb. 10, in News Orleans.
Penny Proud, 21, became the fifth Black transgender woman murdered in the U.S. earlier this year, sparking outrage with popular hashtags #BlackTransLivesMatter and #MakePennyProud.
Proud was found dead Tuesday, Feb. 10, in New Orleans with multiple gunshot wounds, receiving little mainstream attention compared to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.
“If you know a trans woman of color, lift her up and hold her close. We are being murdered in the streets simply for breathing,” Lourdes Ashley Hunter, national director of Trans Women of Color Collective, tweeted.
According to Black trans women’s allies, Black Lives Matter and coverage around it shouldn’t only focus on the victimization of Black men by police, but be inclusive of Black trans lives and issues.
“I think the biggest challenge is making this movement intersectional; looking at the various forms of oppression play into Blackness,” said Arielle Newton, 23, the editor-in-chief and founder of Blackmillennials.com.
“Black Lives Matter must mean just that, all Black lives, not just [heterosexual] Black men,” said Zellie Imani, 30, activist and blogger of Black-culture.com.
Imani and Newton are cisgender advocates (meaning they identify with the gender they were assigned at birth). They are part of Black Twitter and Black Lives Matter Movement.
“I think there’s a lot of relationships that need to be built,” Newton said. “As a cisgender woman I will never understand what it means to be trans.”
“I actively research for myself and read for myself,” she added. “So I can be better educated and better prepared to be a better ally for my trans brothers and sisters.”
She said she knows “plenty of cisgender people who are like ‘this is a movement for Black liberation.’ Black and Brown trans people of color definitely have a right and place in it.”
Imani blamed transphobia, misgendering, dehumanization and calling Black trans women “it” as major causes for the lack of value for their lives.
“When a trans woman gets killed, instead of treating her as a victim and wanting to serve the murder of her crime and punish the person who killed her, it’s always about what did she do to get killed?” said Imani.
Ashley Love (center), journalist and coordinator of Black Trans Women’s Lives Matter, organized a national call of peace for Black trans women in D.C., outside the Congressional Black Caucus Conference on Sept. 27. In April 2015, she celebrated 35th birthday. According to Allternet.org,“the average life expectancy for a black trangender woman is 35 years.”
Source: Black Trans Women’s Lives Matter
Ashley Love, 35, journalist and coordinator of Black Trans Women’s Lives Matter, said all Black lives matter, but Black leaders condone transphobic gender segregation, inciting physical violence. She said, laws and attitudes that treat trans women as second-class women and subhuman need to be changed.
“Black elected officials and public figures are quick to speak out against White male on Black male violence, yet generally hold their tongues when Black men continuously murder Black women of transsexual history,” said Love, who is a transsexual and intersex advocate.
She asked for support of Black trans women’s lives back in a September 2014 blog post. “Are the murders of our trans sister less worthy of tears, of outrage – their humanity less than?”
“All too often the media ignores or belittles the epidemic of violence against Black women in the United States, even more so when the victims are women of transsexual or transgender experience,” Love added.
Lamia Beard, Michelle (Yazmin) Vash Payne (top right) and Ty Underwood (bottom right) are three of the Black trans women murdered earlier this year.
According to the Anti-Violence Project, Lamia Beard was found shot to death on Jan. 17 in Norfolk, Va.; Ty Underwood was found shot to death on Jan. 26 in Texas; Michelle (Yazmin) Vash Payne was stabbed to death in Los Angeles on Jan. 31.
Lourdes Ashley Hunter, national director of Trans Women Color Collective, gave Goddess Edwards (photographed) her nickname after being misgendered in WHAS 11’s Jan. 12 coverage of her death in Louisville, Ky.
Local news station WHAS 11 reported 20-year-old Sherman Edwards was found shot to death on Jan. 9 in Louisville, Ky.; Hunter nicknamed her Goddess. Hunter claimed the media misgendered her, according to autostraddle.com.
Walter Scott, a 50-year-old unarmed Black man and father of four, was shot in the back eight times by White South Carolina officer Michael Slager on April 4, as he ran away due to prior arrests for failure to child support.
Slager was charged for murder after a graphic video raised questions if the officer was endangered like he said in his original assertion. Scott’s death received mainstream news coverage. Besides WHAS 11, Edwards received little coverage.
Patrisse Cullors, 31, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter, said the movement is already more inclusive of all Black lives, but news coverage focuses on Black male lives.
“I do think that the media covers what they want to cover,” said Cullors. “[With] the media, the issue of Black men dying is still more important than the issues of Black women and Black trans women.”
“We have been working with TWOCC,” she added. “They have been really critical in the conversation around Black trans women and developing a broader narrative that doesn’t just talk about cis Black people.”
Although Elle Hearns, of TWOCC’s leadership team and central field coordinator of Get Equal, tweeted about assimilation, the process of a person or group’s culture resembling another group’s culture.
“Assimilation won’t save you, and shame on you if you’re OK with being the only one invited by cis people to speak and be visible,” Hearns tweeted.
