Second Black transgender woman killed in Maryland raises alarms
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Another transgender woman has been reported killed, adding to a rising number of targeted murders against vulnerable members of the LGBTQ community.
On Thursday, the body of Zoe Spears, 23, was recovered in Fairmont Heights, Maryland, the Prince George’s Police Department reported.
The Daily Mail is reporting that Spears was shot multiple times on Friday and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Spears death follows the murder of yet another transgender woman, 27-year-old Ashanti Carmon, who was shot and killed in March. Maj. Brian Reilly no connection has been made between the two deaths.
“There is no direct link at this point,” Reilley said at the press conference.
“What we have established with a lot of the women along Eastern Avenue that work in that area, as commercial sex workers, is that it’s a very tight group of women that work out there. And these two women did in fact know each other.”
Carmon however was murdered March 30 “three to four” blocks from where Spears was killed.
Maryland now has two Transgender murders reported in the state.
Nationwide, there have been at least 26 murders of transgender people reported since 2018, the Human Rights Campaign reports. And Spears murder serves as the 10th transgender in 2019 alone, according to the organization.
Julian Castro, a Presidential contender sounded off about the “crisis” in the transgender community because of these murders.
“There’s a crisis of black trans women being targeted and murdered across the U.S. We need to act to protect and support trans women from violence—and we need to do it now,” he said.
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence found in 2013 that almost 90 percent of LGBTQ homicide victims were people of color. They also found that 72 percent were transgender women and 67 percent were trans women of color.
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