Felycya Harris, a 33-year-old transgender interior designer and entrepreneur, was shot to death in Augusta, Georgia on October 3.
Her death is the 31st recorded killing of a transgender or gender non-conforming person in the US this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which suspects this figure is an underestimate.
A majority of those killed were Black and Latinx transgender women and femmes.
It's a sobering record. With three months still to go, 2020 is already the deadliest year for transgender people since the federal government began tracking transphobic killings in 2013.
The new total, updated today, surpasses the 27 reported killings of trans people in all of 2019, 26 reported killings in 2018, 29 in 2017, 23 in 2016, 21 in 2015, 20 in 2014, and 19 in 2013.
Experts say the numbers reflect what has been an ongoing epidemic of transphobic and racist violence against transgender women of color in the US.
"This epidemic of violence, which is particularly impacting transgender women of color, must and can be stopped," Alphonso David, Human Rights Campaign President, said in a statement.
"We must work to address the factors that underpin this culture of violence and openly discuss how the intersection of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia work to deprive transgender and gender non-conforming people of equal access to opportunity and necessities like employment, housing and health care."
In 2019, the American Medical Association declared the ongoing murders of transgender women of color an "epidemic" of violence and put new policies in place to try and find solutions to it.
During the ongoing protests in support of Black lives in June, the murders of Dominique Fells and Riah Milton within 24 hours sparked a national conversation on the ongoing killings of Black trans women. Over 15,000 gathered in New York City to march in support of Black trans lives on June 14, 2020.
"Not one of the 31 lives we have lost this year, or the 196 we have lost since 2013, deserved to have their lives or their futures taken from them," David said.
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