In response to the news of the murder of Tamara Dominguez and the loss of Jovana Luna, a leader at El/La Para Translatinas in San Francisco, the latest of transwomen, Marisa Franco of #Not1More and Mijente, issued the following statement:

“Earlier this summer, when a transgender woman interrupted the President’s LGBTQ reception a person in the crowd of mostly LGBTQ activists shouted to her, ‘This isn’t for you.’ Yesterday when news broke of another transgender women murdered the number hit officially 17. The question becomes then, what is?

We have witnessed women released from detention centers where they have been humiliated, tortured and abused only to face the asphyxiation of poverty and the boot of naked violence.

The abject dehumanization, economic exile and sheer violence transgender women and gender non-conforming people face today, in a post-marriage equality victory demands all hands on deck. The statistics are staggering, the action to address this crisis should be just as strong.”

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