Pgh Lesbian Correspondents

Linda Becerra Moran was 30 when she called 911 and reported she was at risk of being kidnnapped in Los Angeles. That was February 7, 2025.

The Crime

According to the website Remembering Our Dead

Footage of the encounter showed officers speaking in Spanish with a distraught Becerra Moran in the moments leading up to the shooting, keeping their guns drawn as she paced inside a motel room and they stood in the doorway. They opened fire after she moved slowly toward them, the video showed.

Becerra Moran was hospitalized in grave condition after the shooting, Snakeoil said, and the decision to end life support was approved by the ethics committee of the hospital where she was being treated after attempts to reach family members in her native Ecuador were unsuccessful.  She died on February 27, 2025.

Also

a distraught-sounding Becerra Moran is heard saying that a man in a different room was holding her against her will, and bringing other men into the room.

Becerra Moran left behind almost no online presence, and mystery surrounds how she ended up at the San Fernando Valley motel where police shot her. Authorities have so far released few additional details about the deadly encounter, including whether they detained Becerra Moran’s alleged captor when they arrived.

Becerra Moran had reported being held against her will in the motel room as a possible victim of sex trafficking, said Soma Snakeoil, executive director of the Sidewalk Project, a Skid Row nonprofit.

There is video from Linda’s encounter with the police before and after they shot her. You can find it on other platforms, including this one.

Honoring Linda

Linda was born and raised in Ecuador. Little is known of her childhood. It seems her family is in the Los Angeles area as well.

She first connected with the Sidewalk Project in MacArthur Park in late 2023 when police were warning folx about a potential serial killer. The nonprofit worked to help her access housing, but she kept moving around.

Linda was a devout Catholic who owned a five-pound statuette of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the battered suitcase that she lugged around. She said it protected her. When she was hospitalized after being shot by police, advocates from the Sidewalk Project noticed that absence of her statue. So they rushed to find one and place it near her in the hospital room as they said their goodbyes before life support was stopped.

Full stop because this is something you need to absorb. She did not die alone, she did not die without her protector close by. She did not need to die, she did die because of her supposed protectors failures.

Kim Soriano, a researcher exploring the experiences of queer and trans sex workers with police grew close to Linda. Soriano said, talking often about Becerra Moran navigating life as a trans woman of color who supported herself as a sex worker while living on the streets. For her, threats were everywhere. Gangs. Drugs. Police.

Advocates shared that many people spoke so beautifully about her aspirations to be a cook one day, to have a kitchen with plants and to be able to cook raw food. Such a very simple dream most of us take for granted, but so inaccessible to Linda and too many others. Via Fox11.

The Context

Linda is the fifth trans person whose death has been reported in 2025. She is the fourth trans woman, the first Latina trans woman, and the fifth transgender person of color on our list.

All of the people on our list for this year are BIPOC folx. Not most of them, not the majority – all of them.

California has been the site of too many deaths from 2024: Meraxes Medina, Michelle Henry, and Paris Rich Jessup, In 2023, Banko Brown, Kylie Monali , DéVonnie J’Rae Johnson, and Thaddeus ‘Tad’ Keegan Bradley. From 2022, Cherry Bush and Day Rodas. In 2021, Rayanna Pardo, Natalia Smüt Lopez, Poe Black / Oliver Jackson, and Nikai David. In 2020, Marilyn Cazares and Kimberly Fial.

Linda’s vulnerability as a trans woman of color who supported herself as a sex worker while living on the streets cannot be understated. Our failure to provide resources and supports is a moral failing, but our failure to ensure law enforcement doesn’t kill people asking for help is criminal. She was in a crisis, she felt threatened and even though she had negative experiences in the past, she called for help. She dialed 911, the thing we tell people to do. The police were close enough to examine her head for injury, but couldn’t use their skills to get mental health help. That is a pathetic reflection on police training and the refusal of the FOP to ensure their members do their jobs properly.

My experience with my circle is that they buy into this victim blaming mentality with no real understanding of the difference between sex work and sex trafficking. Or start conversations that blame the men who create the sex work market or profit from the trafficking. Compartmentalizing all sex workers into victims without agency implies that those who choose to return to sex work (or survival sex) are lesser. And of course that anyone who actively chooses sex work to earn a living is even more so a lesser human being who needs to be saved from themselves.

This is the damage a culture filled with sexual violence creates – our shame permeates our response. We come up with scenarios and solutions without even talking with sex workers. Just their saviors. Sigh.

Linda’s protective Our Lady of Guadalupe statue is an important reminder of the Madonna/whore duality where the sex worker found comfort from the Madonna, not from churches or pastors or preaching. I posit we think of Linda as the Madonna, the innocent victim of forces of men she could not control. She suffered. She sacrificed. She endured and she had hope. Perhaps is we stopped imposing binary roles on women in general and could understand them in their full humanity and divine roles at the same time, we might value them – us – enough to change things.

Linda’s death at the hands of the police will not remain unchallenged. Community groups are preparing 15 legal claims with her family. You can also read more about the LAPD response and what if any consequences we can expect.

Rest in power, Linda. Your perseverance and dedication to self-preservation are admirable. You asked for help and help you did deserve. We see your humanity, your depths, and your resiliency. Your death rests on all of our shoulders. You are now with your Lady of Guadalupe. I hope you find comfort there.

May your memory be a revolution.

Deaths reported in 2025

1. Tahiry ‘Tokyo’ Broom – February 9, 2025. Detroit, Michigan. Age 29.
2. Sam Nordquist – February 2025. Canandaigua, New York. Age 24.
3. Amyri Dior – February 21, 2025. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Age 23.
4. Ervianna ‘Baydee’ Johnsonn – February 19, 2025. Tabor City, North Carolina. Age 25.
5. Linda Becerra Moran – February 27, 2025. Los Angeles, California. Age 30.

Other deaths I’ve reported during 2025

• Elisa Rae Shupe – January 27, 2025. Syracuse, New York. Age 61.
• Chilendrina Gracia Dominguez – January 18, 2021. Reported February 2025. Albuquerque, New Mexico. Age 42.
• Amira O’Neill – July 6, 2023. Ann Arbor, Michigan. Age 44.
• Jay Lee – July 8, 2022. Oxford, Mississippi. Age 20.