Shooting in Houston Targets Trans Woman

A shooting in Houston, Texas last week left a trans woman injured, and the suspect is still at large. The shooting took place at 11 a.m. on January 24 at a gas station in Houston, according to the Houston Chronicle. The shooter fled the scene, and the victim was injured but survived.

1/ @HRC is horrified to hear of the shooting of Pinky, a trans woman living in Houston. The suspect must be brought to justice and held accountable for this horrifying act of violence. https://t.co/5vsQXgXB25 https://t.co/eEaZZAXCBk — Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) January 26, 2019

Initial reports on the crime correctly identify the victim as a woman, but later reports misgendered her as a male because of the markers on her driver’s license. She was eventually identified as a local woman named “Pinky,” and the Transgender Education Network of Texas released a statement about the incident. “The initial report listed her as a woman, but then later in the same report went on to state her gender marker identified her as male,” they explained. “Unfortunately, this is a story that plays out far too often in our community. Due to the complicated process and financial barriers that our community face when changing our identification to match who we truly are, many of us do not have the means or access to be able to have a state-issued license or ID that identifies us correctly as who we are.” This violence against the trans community is unfortunately an all-too-common story in 2019.