A 22-year old transgender woman, Tracy Williams, from Houston became a victim of domestic violence at the hands of an intimate partner in July. Her 25-year-old boyfriend, Joshua Bourgeois, was charged by the police for her murder in August.
The story has naturally shaken Houston’s LGBTQ community despite the stellar economy that Houston has been exhibiting. However, Dee Dee Watters, a LGBTQ community leader, stated that the case was a frightening reminder of their own vulnerability.
Watters, a black transgender woman who served as the madam chair of the Black Trans Women Inc. (an advocacy group) told ABC News, that suffering a similar fate was her biggest fear.
She stated that the Williams episode just reminded her that transgender people existed in a place, where the society hated them and sometimes their loved ones too because their choices are unnatural.
Research indicates that though domestic violence impacts people of all genders and backgrounds, transgender people were at a much higher risk of suffering violence at the hands of intimate partners.
A 2015, study on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law by UCLA’s Williams Institute found that 31% to 51% transgender people had experienced dating violence compared to the 28% to 31% of general population. But many other people say this is not surprising at all.
For a man to find out that their partner used to be a man could be a shocking revelation.
