Dis In Death

I just found out they were trans, but from media reports, you would never know it.

WMTW:

Court documents reveal the jarring details of last week’s killing in Portland’s Back Cove. A newly released affidavit shows Julian, Juju, Nadeau suffered a single stab wound to the chest while walking in Portland last Wednesday.

Flowers lay at a spot under Tukey’s Bridge, where Nadeau was heading to open Pokémon cards and hang out.

WGME:

Court documents detail the events leading up to last week's murder of a young adult on Portland’s Back Cove Trail.

Twenty-one-year-old Julian "Juju" Nadeau was walking with friends on the paved trail near Tukey's Bridge when police say a man on a bicycle approached the group and pulled out a knife.

Portland Press Herald:

Julian Nadeau held close what she loved.

Her clothes, which she wore until they were tattered. Her pins, which she collected and displayed on her backpack. Her friends and loved ones, who she hugged often.

The 21-year-old Portland resident, also known as Juju, was fatally stabbed last week while walking with friends to one of her favorite spots in the city: the colorful wall of graffiti underneath Tukey’s Bridge.

Them:

In the aftermath, initial media coverage misgendered and deadnamed Nadeau, a common macroaggression trans people face after becoming the victim of a violent crime. But for Kasper DeWitt, Juju’s partner of two years, she was so much more than a name in a headline. To her loved ones, DeWitt says, Nadeau lit up the world. She was “divine.”

For us in the community, it is doubly hard to lose a friend and have her dissed. Them goes on to write:

Her loved ones plan to honor her energy by sewing some of Nadeau’s fursuit into their own, retiring the well-loved hyena by burning it, and throwing the biggest party ever.

But the mainstream media... not a peep out of them. It is almost as if somehow she was dirty or unclean.

Why Incorrectly Identifying Transgender People Who Have Died Is a Lack of Respect

"Dead naming is done as a means of denying their gender identity."

Teen Vouge

By Brittney McNamara

June 28, 2017

On June 25, Ava Le'Ray Barrin, a 17-year-old transgender girl, was fatally shot in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Athens, Georgia, according to TransGriot. Ava is the 14th transgender person allegedly murdered so far in 2017. But news reports have been incorrectly identifying Ava, using what's known as her deadname. Deadnaming, unfortunately, is a common practice when transgender people are killed, and it highlights the lack of respect transgender people experience both in life and in death.

[...]

"Many trans people fear that in death their full identities will be erased, subtracted from, or diminished," Alex Schmider, a senior strategist for transgender media at GLAAD, told Teen Vogue. "We've seen this happen."

Yet still, the press continues deadnaming us!