Los Angeles – Equality California Executive Director Rick Zbur today issued the following statement in response to the heartbreaking loss of Quartney Davia Dawsonn-Yocum, a transgender woman of color. Her death highlights the kind of violence the transgender community often experiences.
“Wednesday’s open and brazen murder of Quartney Davia Dawsonn-Yocum, a transgender woman of color, was a tragic and deplorable act of violence. It was part of an ongoing epidemic facing transgender people both in their homes and in public. For too long, countless members of the transgender community have been murdered as a result of hate crimes or by an intimate partner, with transgender women of color comprising nearly two-thirds of anti-LGBT homicides. The LGBT community, and everyone who believes in a fair and just society, must unite to help protect people ‘who are simply being who they are and trying to go about their lives.”
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Equality California is the nation’s largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization dedicated to creating a fair and just society. Our mission is to achieve and maintain full and lasting equality, acceptance, and social justice for all people in our diverse LGBT communities, inside and outside of California. Our mission includes advancing the health and well-being of LGBT Californians through direct healthcare service advocacy and education. Through electoral, advocacy, education and mobilization programs, we strive to create a broad and diverse alliance of LGBT people, educators, government officials, communities of color and faith, labor, business, and social justice communities to achieve our goals. www.eqca.org