who "courageously lived her truth" in Brawley, California. But on July 13, her body was found near an abandoned building, stabbed and burned in what her family believes was a hate crime.
She is one of the at least 34 trans or gender-nonconforming people who have been brutally killed in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
The majority of these victims were Black and Latinx trans women. This year has become the deadliest one on record for trans Americans.
Hate crimes against trans people are surging, and the community has only a patchwork of state laws providing protection from hate crimes on the basis of gender identity.