June 1 – Today is the first day of LGBTQIA+ Pride Month. A few days ago, I organized a vigil for a neighbor who was murdered. Eryka Caldwel
By Melinda Butterfield
Across the U.S., at least 12 trans people have been murdered or found dead in suspicious circumstances since early March. That’s about one per week.
On the surface, Eryka Caldwell and Juniper Blessing don’t seem to have had much in common: from different generations, different backgrounds, living very different lives on opposite ends of the country. But what they did have in common was being members of a marginalized group that has been relentlessly scapegoated by the wealthy and powerful for the last half-decade.
The back-to-back murders of trans women in Seattle and Brooklyn, havens of trans life and queer culture, have made explicit what we already knew in our guts: in 2026, there is no safe place for trans people in the United States.
