I am no stranger to trans mortality. When I got my first taste of community on the early trans internet, one of my friends and mentors, Lauren Wilson, took her life.
To this day, I have a quote from her at the end of every email I send. While I was aware before I ever knew Wilson how difficult this path I was traveling could be, her death brought it home that for many of us, it would be a challenge to even make it day by day as a transgender person in a hostile world.
Within five years of first joining that internet community, in the wake of the killing of Rita Hester, I started to research anti-trans violence and murder.