Rasheeda Williams suddenly had a chance to shine at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. She was the star of the critically acclaimed video” Kokomo City,” directed by D. Smith, about Black trans people and their experience working in the sex industry. She said,” I want people to understand that it’s OK merely being something you was born to be,” which may function as a guide for all transgender people.
It happened in January. Williams, also known as” Koko Da Doll,” was shot and killed in Atlanta three months later.
At the time of Williams ‘ passing, Smith, a Black trans woman as well, said,” I created Kokomo City because I wanted to show the fun, humanized, natural side of Black Trans women.” I wanted to produce pictures that did n’t depict the horrors or the data surrounding trans people’s deaths. I wished to produce things novel and motivating. That’s what I did. We carried it out! But here we are once more.
Williams was one of at least 26 transgender or sex nonbinary individuals killed this year in Puerto Rico and across the country. Since January 2017, at least 237 trans people have died, 73 percentage of them with firearms, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. And 66 percent of them were Black people, just like Williams.
That will also be the case in 2023, as well as each time that I have written several columns in December honoring the transgender and female nonbinary victims of violence. Greater presence has resulted in greater risk for transgender people. However, the suffering of telling a lie is outweigh the dangers of perishng for telling the truth.
18-year-old Tasiyah Woodland was born in Mechanicsville, Maryland, on March 24. Lizzy Woodward recalled her daughter as being “high energetic and protective of those she loved” and “never too far when you needed her” on a Paypal website. She mustered the courage to begin living in her wisdom and beginning her transition, which her family welcomed with open arms after she and her three siblings lost their mother, people she greatly resembles and looked up to.
Ashley Burton, 37, was born on April 11 in Atlanta. Her brother recalled Burton as someone who was happy of her personality. Burton was a makeup artist and stylist. Take it or leave it was the way my family moved through life. Patrick Burton told an Atlanta Television place,” This is how I am. You can either value it or ignore it, but Ashley should throw it out there and inform the appropriate party. It wo n’t be kept a secret.
Rasheeda Williams, 35, on April 19 in Atlanta:” My biggest goal is to make sure that other girls do n’t have to go through what we went through,” Williams said to a reporter after” Kokomo City” became popular at the Sundance Film Festival.” Many girls who are coming up now feel like they need to be involved in sex work, but they do not.” We are capable of everything. We may be players, just like they are music performers. Whatever we want to be, we may become.
Banko Paso, 24, was a community-organizing volunteer for the Young Women’s Freedom Center in San Francisco on April 27. Since he was 12 years old, the organization has supported young ladies and trans youngsters. The agency’s co-executive director, Julia Arroyo, said,” He reached my heart. He definitely did get to my soul. He knew what he was aiming for and was both interesting and brave.
LaKendra Andrews, 26, on April 29 in Dallas: It would be almost seven decades before her name was added to this year’s list of transgender people who died by harsh means because she was misgendered and deadnamed—referred to in official information and records of her death by her birth name and gender.
Ella Udell, Gandhi’s closest friend and neighbor, said,” I want Om to be remembered as the warm, kind, loving, intelligent, creative, and funny person that [she ] was,” at a vigil for Gandhi on May 16 in Salt Lake City.
Ashia Davis, 34, passed away on June 3 in Highland Park, Michigan. Davis had just finished medical school and was getting ready to start a new career. She was prepared to take on the world, support, take care of others, and provide up to her community, her nephew Alantae Martin declared to a Detroit television station.
Be who you are, not who the universe wants you to be, is a phrase that Chanell Perez Ortiz, 29, of Carolina, Puerto Rico, frequently credited to Coco Chanel, the European style artist. Ortiz, a hairdresser who adored clothing, took those words as encouragement to live up to her ideals.
Globe blogger Renée Graham writes. She is reachable at jean. Graham@globe .com Observe her @reneeygraham.
