Q&A with Amber Sloan, Candidate for Allegheny County Democratic Committee

A friend of mine stepped up to run for office, specifically for a seat at the table of the Allegheny County Democratic Committee.  Amber is a powerful voice in the City, especially in her home neighborhood of Homewood. Read her AMPLIFY profile here We’ve been featuring candidates for various offices, but this is our first […]

Sasha Wall is the 8th Transgender Person Murdered in 2018 in the US

Sasha Wall was 29 years old when she died from gunshot wounds on Sunday, April 1, 2018 on a rural road in South Carolina. She was found at 8 AM on Easter morning after cars had passed her parked-but-running vehicle for two hours. Sasha was a Black trans woman. That’s a horrifying metaphor for American […]

Amia Tyrae Berryman is 7th Trans Person Killed in 2018 #SayHerName

Amia Tyrae

  Tragic news from Monica Roberts at Transgriot. 28-year-old Amia Tyrae Berryman is the 7th trans person to be murdered in 2018. She died at 1:15 AM this morning, March 26 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. According to her Facebook page, Amia was a native of New Orleans who had finished high school in Baton Rouge […]

Pgh Native Phylicia Mitchell, 46, is 5th Trans Person to be Killed in 2018

Phylicia Coulson Brown

This past Friday, February 23, 2018, Phylicia Mitchell was shot and killed in front her Cleveland home at 6 PM in the evening. She was shot about 6 p.m. Friday on West 112th Street near Detroit Avenue, in the Edgewater neighborhood of Cleveland, according to police reports.  No arrests have been made and the shooting remains […]

Celine Walker, 36, is the 4th Trans Woman Murdered in the US in 2018

Celine Walker

Celine Walker was 36 years old when she died in a Florida motel room from a gunshot wound. She died on Sunday, February 4, 2018. She is the 4th transgender woman, the 3rd trans woman of color, and the second Black trans woman that we know of to be killed in 2018 in the United […]

Tonya ‘Kita’ Harvey is 3rd Trans Person Murdered in 2018 #RIP

  Tonya Harvey was a 35-year-old Black trans woman living in Buffalo, New York. According to the Buffalo News, she was fatally shot on a dead-end street around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday and declared dead at the scene. (References to misgendering and deadnaming at the link.) At 5:30 in the afternoon. She was killed in the […]

Viccky Gutierrez Is the Second Trans Person Reported Murdered in 2018

Friends and family report that Viccky Gutierrez, 33, is the second known victim of homicide in the US during 2018. Wednesday evening, Bamby Salcedo, President & CEO of TransLatin@ Coalition, announced in a Facebook post the death of Viccky Gutierrez: “It is with deep sadness, rage and pain that I have to share with all of you […]

Donate Girl Scout Cookies to Local LGBTQ Youth Projects

This is one of my favorite projects each year – my friend is 14 and she is a Girl Scout. She and her Mom have been selling cookies for many years. For the past several, they accept orders for cookies to be donated to local LGBTQ organizations that work with youth.  She has lots of […]

RIP Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, 42, First Trans Woman Murdered in 2018

Christa

A 42-year-old in the town of North Adams, Massachusetts is the first known transgender person to be killed in 2018 in the United States. Her name was Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien. The man who confessed to police that he killed Christa is her husband, 47-year-old Mark Steele-Knudslien. He is awaiting arraignment. An autopsy will be conducted Sunday […]