Boyfriend charged over murder of 16th trans woman to be killed in US so far this year
Joshua Dominic Bourgeois was charged with the murder of Tracy Single. (Houston Police/Tracy Single)
Police investigating the murder of Tracy Single, the 16th trans woman of colour killed in the US this year, have arrested a man she had been dating.
Joshua Dominic Bourgeois was arrested Friday, August 23, on suspicion of Single’s murder, according to ABC News.
The 25-year-old became a suspect after investigators learned he had been in a “dating relationship” with Single, also known as Tracy Williams.
Police said she was found dead with a puncture wound and several lacerations in a gas station parking lot in west Houston on July 30. She was 22 years old.
It took officials two weeks to identify her body with the help of local LGBT+ activists.
Tracy Single was ‘larger-than-life’.
Originally from New Orleans, Single had been living in a west Houston apartment after spending time at a shelter for homeless youth.
Friends told local paper the Houston Chronicle that she was a “larger-than-life” personality and who loved fashion, drag and performance.
After moving to west Houston, she would visit the a local centre for people “of all sexual orientations and gender identities” who were experiencing homelessness, where she would give peers and mentors dance lessons.
Her death was described as a “big loss for the community” by Courtney Sellers, executive director of the Montrose Grace Place centre.
16 trans women of colour killed so far in 2019.
Single’s death is the latest tragedy in an epidemic of violence against trans women of colour.
At least 15 other trans people of colour have been shot dead or violently killed so far this year, according to Human Rights Campaign.
Their names are Dana Martin, Jazzaline Ware, Ashanti Carmon, Claire Legato, Muhlaysia Booker, Michelle Washington, Paris Cameron, Chynal Lindsey, Chanel Scurlock, Zoe Spears, Brooklyn Lindsey, Denali Berries Stuckey, Kiki Fantroy and Pebbles LaDime Doe.
Human Rights Campaign said that “it is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of colour, and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia and transphobia conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities, barriers that make them vulnerable”.
