US: This woman’s death shows that we’re underestimating trans murders

Diamond Stephens, 39, was found shot to death over a month ago in Meridian, Mississippi.

But because police and local media misgendered her, though, her murder is only coming to light now. Stephens was driving a van when she was shot, which caused the van to crash into a house. Police believe that she was shot by someone inside the car.

In the June stories WTOK-TV ran about the murder and the later candlelight vigil, Stephens was misgendered and deadnamed.

It wasn’t until a reader of Monica Roberts’s blog TransGriot sent in a tip that the community found out that she was a transgender woman.

“This is why we harp on media and police respecting the pronouns and lives of trans people,” Roberts wrote. “This woman was killed in June, but the community is just now finding out about it because of media and police misgendering.”

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