Jaida Peterson,
who was Black and transgender, was found dead in a hotel room in North Carolina
on Sunday, April 4. But it took time for the transgender community to be aware
of her passing because she was misgendered and deadnamed in local media.
Police arrived
at a hotel in Charlotte that day at 1:45 p.m. and found the 29-year-old
unresponsive. They called a medic who pronounced her dead at the scene.
The
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) has not said how she died but
her death has been classified as a homicide.
Planet
Transgender notes that the original story on Peterson’s death
in the Charlotte Observer misgendered her and deadnamed her.
An update
on the Observer article says that that was the name
they were given by police and that they later corrected the article when her
friends reached out to them.
Charlotte
Uprising, a Black-led prison abolition organization, worked with her family to
raise funds and get her body back to South Carolina. A vigil was held on April
9 to remember her, and another was held in South Carolina yesterday.
“You are going
to be truly missed and once again we love you always,” Peterson’s sister posted
to social media.
“Her life
should never have been cut short,” said HRC’s Tori Cooper. “We need everyone to
speak up, affirm that Black Trans Lives Matter and take action now in order to
end this violence. Jaida had family, friends and a community who cared about
her and loved her, and our hearts go out to them.”
HRC said that
at least 14 trans or non-binary people have been violently killed so far this
year, stressing that there may be more.
Peterson
highlights the difficulty in finding out about transgender people who are
killed. If her friends didn’t see that she was misgendered and deadnamed in
local media, the wider transgender community might not have found out about her
death.
Police are
investigating Peterson’s death and are asking anyone who has information to
call 704-432-TIPS.
SOURCE: LGBTQ NATION
Wow... I am... speechless.
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