Muhlaysia Booker: an advocate against trans violence is mourned in Texas

A week after enduring a sustained beating in front of a jeering crowd, Muhlaysia Booker spoke out about her ordeal in the hope of raising awareness about violence faced by transgender women.

“This time I can stand before you whereas in other scenarios we are at a memorial,” she said.

A month later, Booker is being mourned. She was found, fatally shot, on a Dallas street early last Saturday. At least five black transgender women have died violently in the US this year.

“She took the position that she didn’t want any other woman to suffer an attack, she didn’t want women to be killed,” said Kirk Myers, founder and chief executive of Abounding Prosperity, a Dallas organisation that aims to improve the lives of disadvantaged and marginalised black people. “[It] was ultimately her fate.”

The group hosted a rally in support of Booker after she was attacked in the early evening of 12 April. Cellphone footage of the assault was posted on social media and attracted widespread outrage.

Booker said that after she was involved in a minor car accident in the parking lot of an apartment complex in south Dallas, the other driver pointed a gun at her and demanded she immediately pay for the damage. As what appeared to be more than a dozen people gathered, somebody offered $200 as a reward for beating her up, police said. In the video, Booker writhes on the floor as a man wearing gloves rains down punches. She is also kicked by others.

The attack lasts for at least 45 seconds before Booker is carried away by several women. She was taken to hospital and reportedly suffered a head injury, a fractured wrist and bruising.

Mike Rawlings, the Dallas mayor, said in a statement he was “extremely angry about what appears to be mob violence against this woman”.

Edward Thomas, 29, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault. Police said they are still investigating and attempting to identify other suspects. Booker, who was in her early 20s, said homophobic abuse was yelled during the violence.

She was found dead in east Dallas last Saturday at about 6.40am, roughly nine miles away from the original attack and far from her home. She was “lying face down in the street deceased from homicidal violence”, a police spokesman, Maj Vincent Weddington, said at a press conference on Sunday. Weddington said there was no evidence connecting Thomas, who is out on bail, to the death.

“At this time we are unsure as of motive and no arrests have been made,” a police spokesman said on Monday night. “The investigation is ongoing.”

Definitive statistics are hard to come by, but Booker appears to have been the fourth black transgender woman fatally shot this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy group. A fifth, Michelle Simone, reportedly died on Sunday in Philadelphia, five days after Claire Legato died from injuries sustained in Cleveland in April.

“Muhlaysia Booker and Michelle Simone are the fourth and fifth black trans women we know to have been killed in 2019 – all fatally shot,” Jay Brown, senior vice-president of programs, research and training at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), said in a statement to the Guardian.

“Last year, at least 26 trans people were killed and in 2017, at least 29 trans people were killed, most of them black trans women. Lawmakers and community leaders must act to address this horrific epidemic of anti-trans violence. This must end.”

Myers said: “In other communities there’s probably more acceptance. I think in the black community, no. [The beating] incident has shown attitudes and thoughts around trans women – intolerance and hate.”

At least three other black transgender women have been killed this year, in Alabama, Maryland and Ohio.

According to an HRC report, “It is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of colour, and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities, barriers that make them vulnerable.

In May last year, a 26-year-old transgender woman, Karla Flores-Pavon, was found strangled in a Dallas apartment. Police charged a man with murder and said the motive was robbery.

Reports of hate crimes rose across the US by about 17% in 2017, according to the FBI, with a sharp rise in religion-related incidents. Gender identity bias accounted for 1.7% of reported incidents and sexual orientation was linked to 15.9%.

A hate-crime statute has existed in Texas since 2001 but it does not include a specific protection for bias related to gender identity. Despite repeated efforts by Democrats the Republican-dominated legislature has failed to add language referring to gender identity and expression.

The most recent attempt languished at the committee stage in April. Efforts to repeal the Texas penal code’s prohibition on “homosexual conduct” have also faltered, including this year, despite a US supreme court ruling in 2003 rendering the ban unenforceable.

Texas lawmakers did, however, move close on Monday to passing a so-called religious freedom bill which critics fear will encourage anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

Myers said Booker was “outgoing and full of life”. After her injuries she was reluctant to speak in public, he said, but she decided that being visible could help bring attention to the issue.

“In this particular process she was very brave because it was not something she wanted to do,” he said. “She didn’t ask for the spotlight but she wanted to prevent what ultimately happened to her from happening to other women.”