Transphobia and mean streets

[Natasha]

Transphobia and mean streets

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/102662829.html
By Michael Munson And Loree Cook-Daniels
9/11/10

On May 7, 2010, Chanel (Dana) Larkin, 26, was fatally shot in the head by Andrew Olaciregui, 28, who had met her on a Milwaukee street and asked her to engage in a sexual act. Olaciregui pleaded guilty to second-degree reckless homicide in the case on Aug. 31, according to the state's online court database. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.

Although commercial sex work is a notoriously dangerous profession, it would be a mistake to dismiss this death so simply. For Larkin also belonged to another demographic group with an outrageously high early fatality rate: She was an African-American transgender woman.