Updated: June 08, 2020
DISCLAIMER: This post may offend some of you reading this article. Here’s the deal, this article is a written protest and direct response to racial injustice, systemic injustice, violence and all forms of oppression aimed at Black LGBTQ+ folxs.
A horrible video clip is circulating on social media showing the violent attack on Iyanna Dior a black transwoman. As the video played every punch to her face and blows to her head can be felt by the viewer (we will not share the video). This video supports the extreme danger Black Transwomen face in their own community. To add insult to injury, this attack took place in Minnesota, the same place where a black man named George Floyd was mercilessly killed by the police.
The shocking video shows the brutal attack on a Transwoman over an apparent car accident. Iyanna Dior was attacked by a “mob” of over 30 BLACK MEN while people stood by and did nothing to protect her. In the video some of the men can be heard shouting anti-LGBT slurs while Dior is being beaten. Aren’t these the same black men the world is out marching and protesting for?
Here’s the deal! We are tired of hearing the same old reasons that attempt to justify Black folks not knowing better when it comes to their homophobia and transphobia beliefs. If this excuse is allowed to justify violence against the Black LGBTQ+ community; we might as well give up the fight for equality and go drink a margarita!
As black folks are marching and protesting for equality and equity rights around the world. The Black LGBTQ commmunity are demanding that their equality and equity rights are heard too! For those of you who may feel that this is not the time for this argument; we say to you, “WE CAN’T BREATHE EITHER!” As Black leaders across the nation begin to engage in table talks demanding for the restructing of social and racial changes. Black LGBTQ+ folxs must demand a voice in these discussion to amplify sound ideological methods about how to dismantle homophobia and transphobia that permate in the Black community.
It is past time that the Black community address fatal violence against Black transwomen, transmen, gay men, lesbian, queer, nonbinary, gender nonconforming, bisexual, pansexual, and asexual + folxs. It is past time that this nation address the intersections of racism, ageism, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. We can no longer let these actions go unchecked!
Trans activist Janet Mock send message of support to Iyanna Dior
Iyanna Dior
She added: “My heart aches for you. But we got you sis. You’re gonna heal. You rest now. Let us carry what you can’t right now. You deserve rest and peace. We’re showing the f**k up.
“Our fight for Black lives will not be in sacrifice of you or our sisters. We must stop centring cisgender heterosexual men and their needs. We will not ignore the violence some of these men enact on you, our sisters’ and our siblings’ lives.
“If Black lives matter then Black trans lives should matter as well. We are here. We’ve been here. We need our Black cisgender siblings to roll up RIGHT NOW. You ain’t no ally. You are family. We are your family.” _ Janet Mock
The incident is strikingly similar to the treatment of Muhlaysia Booker, a trans woman who was brutally beaten by a mob in Dallas in 2019 after a car accident. Booker was murdered just weeks later, prompting outrage from the trans community.
Muhlaysia Booker
In May 2020, Nina Pop a Black Transwoman was stabbed to death in Sikeston, Mo., over the weekend, making her at least the 12th trans person to die by violence in the U.S. this year.
Pop’s body was found Sunday night in her apartment in the town of about 16,000, 145 miles south of St. Louis, the Associated Press reports. No arrest has been made.
Tony McDade
Tony McDade, 38, was shot and killed by police last week in Tallahassee, Florida.
The details surrounding McDade’s death are murky. According to the Tallahassee Police Department, McDade, a trans man, was approached by police as a suspect in a stabbing that had taken place earlier in the day on May 27. Police Chief Lawrence Revelle reported that “the suspect was in possession of a handgun, and a bloody knife was found at the scene.” Yet Facebook videos taken by witnesses at the Leon Arms apartment complex appear to dispute this.
Eye Witness Account: “They said ‘Stop moving, n—-r,’ and then they shot him after he stopped moving,” a resident says in a Facebook Live taken from across the street. Another witness told local news station WFSU, “I never heard, ‘Get down, freeze, I’m an officer.’ I never heard nothing. I just heard gunshots.”
