Kiki Fantroy, a black transgender woman, was fatally shot in Miami on 31 July.
The 21-year-old was found in the early hours of the morning with multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Miami-Dade Police Department. She was later taken to a hospital and died of her injuries.
Her murder is not believed to be a hate crime, although her mother, Rhonda Comer, has stated that she was targeted because of her gender identity, telling the Miami Herald: “This feeling is indescribable. The pain. The void.
“You know that feeling after losing a child and you losing a child for no apparent reason. Because she’s gay. And my understanding, you know, my understanding was she was killed because of her desire to be a woman.”
Sahfari Ebony, of the League of Extraordinary Transgender Women, told Local 10: “Last night when I read the story, it broke my heart. I actually was in tears. To see that one of my trans sisters has been killed and the killer is still out there and they can’t find them, anybody could be next.”
Fantroy is the 13th transgender casualty this year in the United States, after Dana Martin, Jazzaline Ware, Ashanti Carmon, Claire Legato, Muhlaysia Booker, Michelle Washington, Paris Cameron, Chynal Lindsey, Chanel Scurlock, Zoe Spears, Brooklyn Lindsey and Denali Berries Stuckey.
Transgender women in the United States face extraordinarily high levels of violence. Last year, 26 trans individuals were killed in the country – a majority of which were black and Latina – and 25 of those were women.
If this story has affected you, you can contact Switchboard in the UK and The Trevor Project in the US.
Related: Remembering the 26 trans individuals who were murdered in the United States last year.
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