Today I am invoking my “Howard Cosell Rule” because it’s Transgender Day of Remembrance.
On this date in 1998, Black transgender woman Rita Hester was murdered in the Boston suburb of Allston. Her death received little attention at the time although—or because—it came just weeks after that of Matthew Shepard, a gay man attacked and left to die on a cold high desert night in Wyoming.
A year after Ms. Hester’s death, the first Transgender Day of Remembrance was observed in Boston and San Francisco. Subsequent observances—in which I’ve participated—consist of participants reading the name of a transgender or gender-variant person who was murdered because of their gender identity or expression.
Therefore, I will wrap up today’s post with the name of one such victim: Andrea Doria Dos Passos.
The 37-year-old transgender woman had been dealing, like too many of us, with housing insecurity for some time. On the night of 23 April, experiencing homelessness, she was sleeping near the entrance of Miami City Ballet when a man approached and violently beat her to death.
The next morning, a Ballet employee came upon her body and called the police. Because of security camera footage, the perpetrator was caught quickly: an unfortunately rare outcome in too many cases.
