Alexus Braxton, also known as Kimmy Icon Braxton, a 45-year-old Black trans woman, was killed in Miami, Florida on Feb 4th.
The Miami-Dade Police Department confirmed to Gay City News that authorities are treating the case as a homicide but declined to provide specifics on the incident. Doing so could “jeopardise the case”, detectives said.
In 2020, 70 percent of trans and gender-nonconforming people who died by violence “were killed by an acquaintance, friend, family member or intimate partner,” the Human Rights Campaign notes. Forty-four trans people died violently in the U.S. in 2020, the most since activists and media began keeping records, most of them being Black or Latinx women.
Braxton death is at least the sixth known violent death of a trans person in 2021.
