A Black woman from Alabama is the first known transgender person to be murdered in 2019.
Dana Martin was found dead from a gunshot wound to her head on Sunday night, reports The Montgomery Advertiser. She was discovered by first responders who were answering a call about a car accident. Investigators believe she was shot while she was driving.
Initial reports misgendered Martin, a sadly common error when reporting on the deaths of transgender people. Two local activists identified Martin as a woman to The Advocate.
Montgomery Police claimed the department misgendered the 31-year-old in its official documents as a matter of policy.
“Please note that MPD publicly identified the victim as male as determined by legal documents and forensic evaluation,” Captain Regina Duckett said in a statement to AL.com. “For MPD, how a homicide victim identifies is a personal matter that becomes relevant to our investigation only if it is determined to be a reason the victim was killed.”
There are no suspects in custody. Martin’s murder is also the first homicide of the year for Montgomery.
At least 26 transgender people were murdered in 2018, according to the Human Rights Campaign. As Blavity reported, over 80 percent of those victims were transgender women of color.
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