August was a bad month for transgender women in Washington, DC.
Two T*girls were murdered in August 2003, just as we mourned two others murdered a year ago.
Below is a series of articles from the Washington Post.
You may find these articles unsettling.
Certainly these girls were engaged in risky behaviors besides just being transgender.
Maybe we can't identify with their lifestyles, but I know I feel emptiness in my heart any time I hear a transgender woman is attacked, no matter how distant a cousin she may be.
- Rachel Rene Boyd, Ed.
D.C. Shooting Investigated As Hate Crime
By David A. Fahrenthold Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 18, 2003; Page B01
A well-known performer in District drag shows, who dressed and lived as a woman, was killed by a man who paid for a sex act and then felt he had been deceived, D.C. police said yesterday.
Elvys Augusto Perez, 25, who went by the name Bella Evangelista, was shot and killed about 4:30AM Saturday near Allison Street and Arkansas Avenue NW.
After the shooting, D.C. police stopped Antoine D. Jacobs, 22, as he pedaled furiously away from the scene on a bicycle. Jacobs was arrested and charged with first-degree murder while armed.
Jacobs has said that he shot Perez when Perez tried to rob him, police said.
But investigators have discounted that story, police said. They instead think that Jacobs believed he had paid a woman for oral sex. Afterward, another person apparently told Jacobs that the prostitute was a man and Jacobs allegedly returned to the scene and shot Perez.
©2003 The Washington Post Company
TG murders coverage continues next page...
