Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

From Brave Space Alliance in Chicago:

Davarea Alexander, 28, also known as Tyianna, was shot to death in the early morning hours in the 800 block of West 75th, Ashburn neighborhood, South Side on January 6, 2021.

Officers were called just before 5 a.m. to the 800 block of West 75th Street, where two people were found shot, according to police. Tyianna was found shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene. The other person, a 31-year-old man, was shot and later succumbed to his injuries.

Tyianna was a Black trans woman, marking the first reported violent death of a trans person in 2021 after a brutal 44 recorded deaths during 2020.

Tyianna was born and raised in Chicago. She was known as Barbie, had worked at McDonald’s, and is remembered my many for her enthusiastic greetings when she ran into a friend or loved one. She was active across multiple social media platforms and clearly loved by her many friends. Many people talk about her love of dancing – their memories will be of her in motion and vibrant. 

Tyianna’s visitation will be Thursday and her funeral on Friday at 11. Friends and family celebrated her life with a candle and balloon vigil last week. Donations to the funeral fund and general assistance for transgender Chicogoans can be made via the Trans Relief Fund.

Tyianna is the first trans person reported to have had a violent death in the United States in 2021. Just a few weeks earlier, another Chicago trans woman was killed on Christmas Day – different calendar year, but close enough to be troubling. Courtney ‘Eshay’ Keys was also shot in the head. While that’s not enough to suggest a pattern, it does point to a larger devaluing of Black trans women’s lives. Tips about their murders can be made to cpdtip.com.

Rest in power, Tyianna. You deserved more parties and performances to be with friends and family. You deserved to be in perpetual motion, not stilled by the bullet of someone with no regard for the light you brought to this world. 

May your memory be a revolution. 

This is our list of transgender, gender-nonconforming, and non-binary neighbors lost to violence in 2021. Please do not copy or share this list without attribution.

• Tyianna Davarea Alexandra – Chicago, Illinois. January 6, 2021. Age 28.

We are also still monitoring these supicious deaths from 2020 (in addition to the 44 documented killings.)

• Fendi Mon’ezah Armstrong – Lithonia, Georgia, November 11, 2020. Age 39

• Kimberely Patricia Cope – Athens, Georgia, December 27, 2020. Age 40.