Reyna Hernandez, Latina trans woman, salon owner and “living spirit,” killed in Washington state

Although some media outlets have described her killer as her current romantic partner, People reports that they had broken up and that she was visiting him at his home to “finalize the breakup” when he shot her. Reyna’s family confirmed that she had previously been abused by him and reported that she showed up at their salon with a black eye before she went missing. Tragically, interpersonal violence is responsible for a significant number of deaths among transgender and gender-expansive people. A report from the HRC Foundation titled “The Epidemic of Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in the United States: The 2023 Report” found that between 2013 and 2023, more than one in five (22.4%) transgender people and gender expansive was people with known murderers had their life taken by an intimate romantic or sexual partner.

Reyna is also the eighth transgender or gender-expansive person to lose their life to gun violence since early 2024 and the 247th since HRC began tracking deadly violence against the community in 2013. Unfortunately, gun violence and interpersonal violence often go hand in hand: To date, nearly six in 10 transgender and gender-expansive victims of fatal violence killed by an intimate partner were killed by a gun.

At the state level, transgender and gender-expansive people in Washington state are explicitly protected from discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public spaces. Washington includes both sexual orientation and gender identity as protected characteristics in its hate crimes law. And yet Reyna is the fifth transgender or gender-expansive person to lose their life to deadly violence in the state in the last five years. Although we have seen some recent political successes that support and affirm transgender people, we are also facing unprecedented anti-LGBTQ+ attacks in the states. In June 2023, the Human Rights Campaign declared a national state of emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans after more than 550 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were introduced in state legislatures this year, with over 80 of them signed into law – more than any other year. As of this writing, over 400 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in statehouses since the start of 2024, with more than 25 anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed to date.

We must demand more from our elected officials and reject harmful anti-transgender laws at the local, state and federal levels, while considering all possible options to make ending this violence a reality. It is clear that transgender women of color, particularly black transgender women, are disproportionately affected by deadly violence. The intersections of racism, transphobia, sexism, biphobia and homophobia work together to deprive them of the ability to live and thrive. That’s why we must all work together to promote acceptance, reject hate, and end the stigmatization of everyone in the trans and gender-expansive community.