Fifty Trans Americans Have Been Killed This Year

Before the year’s end, the already record-breaking number for recorded murders among the trans community has now reached a new high, with the 50th murder of a trans person reported in 2021.

Nikai David was a 33-year-old Black, trans woman, killed in Oakland, California on December 4 around 4 a.m. Police responded to reports of gunfire and found David shot. She later died at the scene according to reporting from Bay Area Reporter.

The Oakland LGBTQ Community Center mourned David, saying, “We mourn the loss of Nikai David, a beloved community member and Black, transgender woman who was killed in Oakland,” in a statement posted on Facebook.

She was a close friend of Center employee Ashlee Banks, who spoke with local FOX affiliate KTVU 2, calling David a “really sweet” and “happy, fun person, adding David was also “fun loving and considerate: someone who went out of her way to help others.” David was a model and spiring social media influencer who wanted to eventually open a clothing boutique. She had celebrated her 33rd birthday one week before she was killed.

Banks told KTVU 2, “I was really devastated when I found out, when I got the news,” and said there was some type of physical altercation, though she had “no idea why anyone would want to harm Nikai.”

The statement from the Center also said Bank was planning on working with other trans community members to “honor her community sister.”

This year is the most violent on record for violence against trans people, only besting the record previously set by 2020, with a total of 44 anti-trans murders reported. The vast majority of these murders have been Black, trans women.

Tori Cooper, HRC’s director of community engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, spoke out and called the news “disheartening and alarming.”

“In the year that we’ve marked as the deadliest year on record for our community, we continue to see a frightening rate of fatal violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people,” Cooper says. “We must all continue to demand that the violence cease. David was a young person with so much life ahead of her. For her future to have been violently taken away from her serves as a reminder that we remain with so much work ahead of us to ensure a safe and loving world for all.”

Photo courtesy of KTVU