Photo by Cameron Whitman, via Stocksy.
Dana Martin, 31, of Montgomery County, Alabama, was killed on Sunday, January 6, in a shooting, making her the first known transgender woman killed in 2019.According to local news reports, Martin was found in her car, which had ran off the road and crashed into a ditch. She was found inside her vehicle with fatal gunshot wounds.The Alabama news website AL.com reports that the Montgomery Police Department misgendered Martin, a common occurrence that makes it more difficult to identify transgender victims of violent crime. In a statement to AL.com, the MPD said: “Please note that MPD publicly identified the victim as male as determined by legal documents and forensic evaluation… For MPD, how a homicide victim identifies is a personal matter that becomes relevant to our investigation only if it is determined to be a reason the victim was killed.” The LGBT publication INTO spoke with contacts and friends of Martin, who confirmed that she was a transgender woman.
According to GLAAD, the misidentification of transgender victims of violence "adds further insult to injury, compounding the tragedy by invalidating who the victims were." GLAAD has created a guide explaining the importance of correct identification, Doubly Victimized: Reporting on Transgender Victims of Crime.According to the Montgomery Adviser, the investigation into Martin's death is ongoing. At time of publishing, no arrests have been made.For More Stories Like This, Sign Up for Our Newsletter