We Belong Dead

Marchers at the Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco. The focal point is a woman wearing a cape and a leotard with “Gay Power” emblazoned on the front in glittery cursive. She is carrying a shield depicting an outline of a labrys and the words “FIGHT BACK”

For the past 18 months, Donald Trump’s regime has been steadily putting in place all of the infrastructure, legal and otherwise, to make it impossible for trans people to exist in public, and to justify the dehumanization and extermination of trans lives on a mass scale. 

For the past 18 months, Donald Trump’s regime has been steadily putting in place all of the infrastructure, legal and otherwise, to make it impossible for trans people to exist in public, and to justify the dehumanization and extermination of trans lives on a mass scale. 

By Melinda Butterfield

Across the U.S., at least 12 trans people have been murdered or found dead in suspicious circumstances since early March. That’s about one per week.

On the surface, Eryka Caldwell and Juniper Blessing don’t seem to have had much in common: from different generations, different backgrounds, living very different lives on opposite ends of the country. But what they did have in common was being members of a marginalized group that has been relentlessly scapegoated by the wealthy and powerful for the last half-decade.