Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Following the tragic news that two young queer women of color were brutally murdered in Texas earlier this year comes another story – Kevin Moyer of Dallas was found brutally murdered in his car earlier in April.  Investigators do not believe this was a hate crime, but a sexual encounter gone horribly wrong. Friends held a memorial service in Dallas and the 3 suspects (all men) are in custody after several days.

Meanwhile, the KIA belonging to Cosby and Jackson was found in a storage lot. It is being processed for evidence and reports indicate investigators have found some blood trace in the vehicle.

So here we have two very different scenarios involving the brutal murder of 3 queer people within a month’s time. Moyer’s body was so badly beaten that it required dental records to verify his identity. That’s not something to dismiss – it is pretty brutal and vicious. The fact that he was a gay man is part of the narrative and part of the larger narrative of violence in our society.

Britney and Crystal were allegedly murdered by a family member in their home, then dumped on the side of a road. Again, there’s a larger narrative at play – the incidents of familial violence, the presumption that a blood tie condones or allows some sort of violence upon another human being. That human beings are property. That consenting to a sexual encounter is the same thing as consenting to be brutalized. These are horrible distortions of what it means to be a family, what it means to be on a date, what it means to have sexual contact.

These are 3 different lives who endured different violent endings, united by the fact that they are live in a state that seems to revere violence and they belong to the larger LGBTQ community which is often more vulnerable to said violence.

While it is progress that the vehicle was discovered, the investigation faces many barriers including the lack of cooperation from James Cosby, Britney’s biological father who is jailed for tampering with evidence. This is not CSI – there will be no magical resolution based on some minute obscure scientific process.

My heart continues to ache for the little one they left behind and wonder what narrative she will grow up to hear about her family?