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[furniturekiller]

Sam Nordquist Is Not The Only Black Trans Person That Died This Month.

Do Only Some Black Trans Lives Matter to You?

there's no clever way of saying it. people in our community, in general, do not care about Black trans female sex workers or their lives.

117 original posts on tumblr about Sam Nordquist, multiple in the hundreds of notes, not even counting posts memorializing Lisa or Tahiry too. more needed, but comparatively a lot of coverage when you consider:

6 original posts about Tahiry Broom, a 29 year-old Black trans female sex worker that was killed five days earlier and reported on at the same time as Sam. two of those original posts are memorializing all trans people that have passed this year, and only one has more than 30 notes.

(link to more awful evidence on how ignored Tahiry's passing has been in comparison to Sam's and in general)

how can we be so cruel as to create and perpetuate a hierarchy when it comes to how worthy of care a Black trans death is? to validate the oppressive systems that ended her? this community's transmisogynoir and disregard for the lives of sex workers is sickening. and it's the exact reason her murderer called 33 Black female sex workers (including other trans women) and eventually Tahiry when he was looking to lure someone to her death. it's the exact reason this young woman died 12 days before her birthday.

Learn Her Story.

Share Her Funeral Fund. (Service on 22nd)

SAY HER NAME.

Donate to Help Black Trans Sex Workers, Black Trans Women's Freedom of Movement, Homeless Black Trans Women, Black Trans Rental Assistance and Gender-Affirming Care, Black Trans Activism, Identification of Missing and Murdered Trans People, and Black Trans Women's Nourishment, Freedom, and Safety.

Pay Attention by keeping up with News Outlets and Orgs that report on Black Trans Women and Sex Workers (like Blaque Out, pghlesbian, NBJC, etc.) by following their social medias and subscribing to their newsletters—

esp pghlesbian who works in tandem with Trans Doe Task Force and therefore is usually the first to report (btw, consider donating to her legal defense and blog expenses as she's too disabled to work and has been sued by transphobes)

ID BELOW

[ID: A cropped screenshot of an online article by Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents. The article's title says "29 Year Old Black Trans Woman Tahiry Broom Killed in Detroit" with smaller text below it saying "February 14, 2025 by Sue". A photo below shows Tahiry, a young woman with a soft face and warm brown skin. She has a short, straight, sleek black bob. Her baby hairs are laid down. She has a filter that makes her thin eyes a grey-blue underneath her long false eyelashes. Her medium-to-wide nose turns up at the end, and her thick, glossy lips seem to be puckered for the photo. Her eyebrows are black and thinned out, and she seems to be wearing a black salon cape buttoned over her multicolored blouse. A chest tattoo of what seems to be a dark green vine peeks out from under the cape. She is beautiful. Below the photo, text reads "Tahiry 'Tokyo' Broom via family". End image description.]

[spookyoveralls]

Two More Black Trans Women Have Died. On the Same Day.

Get involved locally now, esp with mutual aid. Or there's no point in calling ourselves a community.

Rest in peace to Amyri Dior and Ervianna "Baydee" Johnson.

[furniturekiller]

Sam Nordquist Is Not The Only Black Trans Person That Died This Month.

Do Only Some Black Trans Lives Matter to You?

there's no clever way of saying it. people in our community, in general, do not care about Black trans female sex workers or their lives.

117 original posts on tumblr about Sam Nordquist, multiple in the hundreds of notes, not even counting posts memorializing Lisa or Tahiry too. more needed, but comparatively a lot of coverage when you consider:

6 original posts about Tahiry Broom, a 29 year-old Black trans female sex worker that was killed five days earlier and reported on at the same time as Sam. two of those original posts are memorializing all trans people that have passed this year, and only one has more than 30 notes.

(link to more awful evidence on how ignored Tahiry's passing has been in comparison to Sam's and in general)

how can we be so cruel as to create and perpetuate a hierarchy when it comes to how worthy of care a Black trans death is? to validate the oppressive systems that ended her? this community's transmisogynoir and disregard for the lives of sex workers is sickening. and it's the exact reason her murderer called 33 Black female sex workers (including other trans women) and eventually Tahiry when he was looking to lure someone to her death. it's the exact reason this young woman died 12 days before her birthday.

Learn Her Story.

Share Her Funeral Fund. (Service on 22nd)

SAY HER NAME.

Donate to Help Black Trans Sex Workers, Black Trans Women's Freedom of Movement, Homeless Black Trans Women, Black Trans Rental Assistance and Gender-Affirming Care, Black Trans Activism, Identification of Missing and Murdered Trans People, and Black Trans Women's Nourishment, Freedom, and Safety.

Pay Attention by keeping up with News Outlets and Orgs that report on Black Trans Women and Sex Workers (like Blaque Out, pghlesbian, NBJC, etc.) by following their social medias and subscribing to their newsletters—

esp pghlesbian who works in tandem with Trans Doe Task Force and therefore is usually the first to report (btw, consider donating to her legal defense and blog expenses as she's too disabled to work and has been sued by transphobes)

ID BELOW

[ID: A cropped screenshot of an online article by Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents. The article's title says "29 Year Old Black Trans Woman Tahiry Broom Killed in Detroit" with smaller text below it saying "February 14, 2025 by Sue". A photo below shows Tahiry, a young woman with a soft face and warm brown skin. She has a short, straight, sleek black bob. Her baby hairs are laid down. She has a filter that makes her thin eyes a grey-blue underneath her long false eyelashes. Her medium-to-wide nose turns up at the end, and her thick, glossy lips seem to be puckered for the photo. Her eyebrows are black and thinned out, and she seems to be wearing a black salon cape buttoned over her multicolored blouse. A chest tattoo of what seems to be a dark green vine peeks out from under the cape. She is beautiful. Below the photo, text reads "Tahiry 'Tokyo' Broom via family". End image description.]

[spookyoveralls]

Reblogging from another blog for visibility. Another Black trans woman was reported murdered.

[spookyoveralls]

Post remade here for visibility.

[punkbutch]

I really don't pray but I'm praying for Sam Nordquist's family right now. We all need to do more to support those in abusive relationships, those suffering sexual assault, and those who are Black and trans. rest in peace, sam.

Also important to note how little coverage a young woman's murder is getting at the same time. while sam nordquist's name popped up immediately in tag predictions, tahiry broom's name had no suggestions as i typed it out. Tahiry Broom was shot to death by a man seeking to specifically call a Black female sex worker in order to murder her. again, the support is missing, but this time it becomes even more invisible to the media as tahiry is a woman and a sex worker, even with how blatant a hate crime it was. we are failing our communities. we are failing our Black trans community. we are failing our Black trans female community. rest in peace, tahiry.

please click the above links to learn more about these two precious and young people whose lives should’ve never been cut short.

please donate to snap4freedom, blacktranstravelfund, tahiry's memorial fund, and funding for sam's family to travel and eat as they deal with the investigation and trial.

you can also donate to pghlesbian, the lesbian who runs the archive keeping track of trans people's deaths in the United States, as it takes money to continue the work and she is paid for none of it. links to donate at the bottom of each article, including this one where she describes the (very recent!) harassment and threats she's received doing this work.

i hope the people in your community know they can rely on you, and know they are cared for. if they don't— and some always don't because they aren't cared for or given support, especially Black trans women and sex workers— then get to work.

Black lives matter.

Black trans lives matter.

Black trans women's lives MATTER.

act like it!

[punkbutch]

you may ask if there was a discrepancy in the timeline of their stories, as that could possibly explain the difference in coverage. there is. Tahiry was found dead five days before Sam was.

even going by when they were both reported upon as being trans and murdered (as it can sometimes take long periods to memorialize a community member due to false reporting of identities in news and by family), they were both posted about by Sue Kerr of pghlesbian on Feb 14th.

this is not meant in any way to say that Sam Nordquist doesn't deserve a spotlight or hasn't had his death DRASTICALLY underreported on in the media. he does deserve one, and he has. in fact, I'm grateful to see all the care and attention his story is being given in our community, and we could use even more. but we cannot ignore the blatant lack of coverage and care in our community for the death of a woman and sex worker who is also Black and trans just like Sam. not a damn post shows up for Tahiry. not one. our media outlets should be covering her too. our people should be posting about her too, making noise for her too. should be SAYING HER FUCKING NAME too. NOW.

[punkbutch]

i feel a slight relief and warmth at the massive coverage of Sam's murder, the celebration of his life, and the fact that even international newspapers have shared his story. even if the only true justice would be Sam growing old, it means we have hope for future Black trans men like Sam.

i feel nothing but sickness when i see the careless absence of our community in the face of Tahiry's murder.

[theypawzed]

saw a white woman refer to sam nordquist as "kid" - of course, little black boys are "young men" but grown black men are "kids." acknowledge him fully for what he was: a BLACK TRANSGENDER man. his blackness and transgender status in combination were what made him so vulnerable to this brutal abuse and murder. do not infantilize him. and furthermore do not erase his blackness to spotlight only his transness. this was a hate crime which shows yet again the compounding effects of transphobia and antiblack racism. it is not a coincidence that all five accused murderers are white, and can be linked to white nationalism on public social media profiles (such as emily motyka's confederate flag profile picture).

according to data aggregated from 2013 to the end of 2024, approximately 85% of transgender homicide victims in the usa are people of color - with a majority of victims being black transgender women.

also, if you're going to share pictures of sam, show what he actually looked like as himself - not the pretansition photo picked by basically every fucking news outlet. pre-transition and non-op/non-medically transitioning transgender people are obviously still trans, but that was not his current situation at all, and it's so profoundly disrespectful to latch onto an outdated photo to represent him. here's what he looked like in actual recent pics he chose to share on his own social media:

and if you can, help his family with their expenses. nobody should have to worry about associated costs while processing such a horrific loss.

[punkbutch]

and please remember to say Tahiry Broom's name too. She was found murdered five days before Sam and was not only Black and trans but a woman and a sex worker. Our community has been completely ignoring her unjust death and replicating the very systems that continue to devalue Black trans women and sex workers' lives and lead to tragedy like this. Black trans women's lives matter. She was only 29. She was killed by a man who was specifically seeking out a Black female sex worker to kill. Donate to her family's memorial fund here.

The combined effects of antiblack racism and transphobia took the life of Sam Nordquist and have continued on in his death through severe underreporting of his murder and erasure of his suffering (and its causes). In the same way, the combined effects of misogyny, transphobia, disenfranchisement of sex workers, and antiblack racism that took the life of Tahiry Broom continue through even less reporting and even more erasure.

I looked up both "Tahiry Broom" and "Sam Nordquist" on Instagram and Tumblr, and while the outpour of memorial posts in the wake of Sam's suffering is heartwarming, the absence our community when it comes to Tahiry's pain is heartbreaking.

This is an unacceptably cruel horror regarding our part as a "community". If we won't even note a Black trans female sex worker's death, how do we expect to make Black trans female sex workers safe? How can we expect to be a serious movement if we recreate the hierarchies of the white cis male johns? When Tahiry's name goes unsaid, we are no better than them and we betray our most vulnerable.

Uplift Sam Nordquist's story AND Tahiry Broom's.

Say Her Name. Know Her Face. Repeat Her Story. Tahiry Broom.

[spookyoveralls]

Another photo of her above. She was only 12 days from her birthday. It should break all of our hearts to see how little people are talking about her suffering.

SAY HER NAME. Tahiry Broom.