Activists to rally in Boyle Heights against transgender violence
A bandstand in Mariachi Plaza in L.A., where a protest against violence on transgender people will take place.
Transgender community leaders and LGBTQ activists announced that they plan to hold a rally protesting violence against transgender and gender nonconforming people Tuesday afternoon in Boyle Heights.
The rally is scheduled for 5 p.m. in the Mariachi Plaza at East 1st Street and North Boyle Avenue and will include members of the TransLatin Coalition and Familia: Trans and Queer Liberation Movement, among other groups.
Demonstrators will call for an investigation into the death of Tamara Dominguez, a transgender woman who was repeatedly run over by a car in a church parking lot in Kansas City, Mo., over the weekend. Authorities are looking into her death as a potential hate crime.
Nineteen transgender men, transgender women and gender-nonconforming people have been killed across the country this year, protest organizers said. In March, demonstrators shut down an intersection outside the Beverly Center to protest violence against transgender people.
Southern California has been home to some of that violence.
On Jan. 31, Yasmin Vash Payne, 33, was found dead on the kitchen floor of a burning Van Nuys apartment with multiple stab wounds. Deshawnda “Ta-Ta” Sanchez, 21, was shot in Chesterfield Square in December. On a 911 call, she told a police dispatcher that she had been attacked and robbed. The phone went silent after gunshots were fired.
In October, Aniya Knee Parker, 47, was shot in East Hollywood after a struggle over her purse.
The body of 28-year-old transgender activist Zoraida Reyes was found in June 2014 in the parking lot of an Anaheim Dairy Queen. After making an arrest months later, prosecutors said Reyes had been choked to death and kept in the trunk of a car before her body was dumped behind the restaurant.
Studies show that transgender women — especially those of color, who experience high levels of poverty — are more likely to be victims of violence and harassment.
Times staff writer Hailey Branson-Potts contributed to this report.
For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna.
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