this is water

Eyricka Morgan, 26, was a black transgender woman. She was a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She was an activist.  

Transgender women of color experience disproportionate levels of hate violence compared to other members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, facing challenges and struggles that are uniquely framed by the intersecting nature of their marginalized identity framework.

Nettles’ friends spoke up against this mistreatment. After Eyricka died, we, her friends, had two options: Speak up or remain silent. As cisgender allies we could choose to do our part to ensure Eyricka’s story was shared, or we could do nothing. But true allies are not absent when they are needed most.

http://www.avp.org/storage/documents/ncavp_transhvfactsheet.pdf

Many trans women of color are fighting just to live, and dream of stopping the onslaught of violence in their lives. Among LGBTQ communities, trans people are most susceptible to police violence; trans women in particular are most likely to be killed by hate violence homicides, according to the advocacy organization the Anti-Violence Project.

“Black trans women should never have to live in fear that today will be their last day,” Elle Hearns, a field coordinator at the LGBTQ advocacy organization Get Equal, told AlterNet. “It is a national emergency that we must pay attention to by taking action to support and sustain the lives of trans women who are under attack.”

Trans women of color need us all to listen to their stories when they are alive so that we are not grief-stricken when they are slain. We could all have fewer occasions to shed tears if we followed the lead of trans women of color in the fight to end trans antagonistic violence now. Eyricka, Tamara, Elisha, Shade, Amber, Kandis, Papi, Lamia, Ty, Yazmin, Taja, Penny, Kristina, Keyshia, London, Mercedes, India, K.C. and so many other trans women of color killed deserve more than silence. It takes self-reflection and determined effort to overcome complacency in a society that often treats those who defy rigid cultural norms — like gender nonconforming and transgender people — as unworthy of respect or safety, but it should not have to take a friend’s death to remind us to speak up.