After deadliest year on record, yet another trans woman is slain in the US: ‘This is a national epidemic’

Just days after 2021 became the deadliest year on record for anti-trans violence, yet another trans woman, Jenny De Leon, has been slain in the US.

De Leon, a 25-year-old with a “bright soul”, was murdered in Tampa, Florida, on 2 November.

With her death comes a grim realisation for activists. That 2021 is the deadliest year for fatal violence against trans folk since national record-keeping began – and with six weeks of the year left, the figure will only continue to climb, they warn.

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT+ campaign group that has documented trans killings since 2013, says “at least” 45 trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people have been murdered this year.

With De Leon’s death, the death tally has leaped to 46.

Tampa Police Department officers found De Leon dead at around 6am in the 8500 block of North 9th Street in the quiet residential neighbourhood of Sulphur Springs.

Powered by Froala Editor