“We knew that we were doing important work, and we knew that we were going to keep doing it until we succeeded,” she told The Daily Beast. For her, there was no way of knowing that the advocacy around Hester’s death would lay the groundwork for what is now an international day of action.įor her, it was another year, another murder. Nangeroni lived to fight on, her quotes appearing in every newspaper report on every transgender death in Boston: Deborah Forte in 1995, Monique Thomas in 1998. This is a message we cannot afford to send.” It’ll just give people a message that it’s OK to do this. In what Nangeroni has since called a “ chillingly ironic” response to the verdict, Hester herself once provided a comment on the trial to a local LGBT newspaper: “I’m afraid of what will happen if gets off lightly. “I feel they did not do their job and, frankly, I hope this keeps them awake at night.” “ let their homophobia, their transphobia, get the better of them,” Nangeroni told the Phoenix of the Palmer verdict. Twenty years after Pickett’s murder, California is still the only state to have categorically banned the use of the “trans panic” defense. The verdict shocked the Boston trans community and the police captain who led the investigation. Palmer successfully dodged a murder or even a manslaughter sentence, receiving a mere two years in prison for assault and battery instead. Palmer’s attorney argued that the violence preceding Pickett’s death was, in part, an emotional reaction to a purportedly unexpected bedroom revelation that she was trans-this despite the fact that six other transgender women claimed to have had sexual encounters with Palmer, as the Boston Phoenix reported. In 1995, Chanelle Pickett, a 23-year-old black transgender woman living in Boston, was found dead, beaten and strangled, in the apartment of one William Palmer, who used a “ trans panic” defense during his 1997 trial. One case, in particular, had set the stage for news of Hester’s violent death. By the time she received that call from the Boston Herald, Nangeroni was already seasoned at responding to tragedy within the city’s trans community. That’s how Nangeroni, now a member of the steering committee for the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition ( MTPC), first learned of the murder, and how she came to co-organize the 1998 vigil with others in the community. In 1998, Boston reporters in need of a trans perspective always called Nancy Nangeroni, one of the most visible transgender advocates in what was then a much smaller scene. It is possible that her assailant is still alive and it is only cold comfort to consider that, as time goes on, it has become harder and harder for him to avoid the name and face of the woman he killed. There were no signs of forced entry, nothing was stolen from her apartment, and there are no suspects, only rumors. Reopened by Boston Police in 2006, it remains unsolved. Their killers are rarely found, and almost never brought to justice. Their stories are often misreported by the media. In death, their bodies bear the marks of violence-bullets, stab wounds, blunt trauma. In life, they were students, performers, activists, daughters, friends. Since last fall, there have been 271 reported murders of transgender people worldwide. In 2015, the murders of 21 transgender people, primarily young transgender women of color, have been reported in the United States so far-an all-time high for the annual figure. 20, advocates around the world hold vigils to honor Hester, and to memorialize those who have been killed both before and since her murder. On Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR), which is observed every Nov. Now, at least, it can no longer be ignored. Seventeen years later, violence against transgender people hasn’t abated. There were tears, Monroe says, but also anger, and fear that a recent rash of transgender killings in the area would claim more lives. The procession began at the Model Café in Allston and ended outside of Hester’s apartment building, where Kathleen and her children kneeled together and recited the Lord’s Prayer. I would have taken the stabs and told you to run. Monroe recalls that Hester’s mother Kathleen took the microphone at the vigil and said in a faltering voice, “I would have gladly died for you, Rita.
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