Stephanie Martinez is a transgender activist in Austin, TX. She met Rayshad Deloach in an online chat room. Deloach said he was interested in learning about transgender people/issues.

This is not unusual by itself. We must educate our fellow citizens about who we are in order to establish our niche in society. That's pretty much why I do what I do.

Austin transgender woman Christi Long has supported herself by working as a drag queen known as Christi Foxx Paris. Last Sunday she was raped and beaten with a hammer after she refused to have sex with a man she thought was a friend.

I can’t help feeling that – because I’m trans, I’m less valuable.

--Long

That is something everyone can agree on. Just exactly what that evil was is what we disagree on.

This morning SB 6, which is HB 2 reincarnated and beamed over from North Carolina, was passed by the Texas Senate Affairs Committee by a vote on 8-1. That followed testimony on Tuesday of over 250 people which lasted more than 13 hours. There were 253 witnesses who testified against SB6 and 29 who testified in favor of it.

Monica Loera was shot and killed on her front doorstep on January 22.

Although police have made an arrest in the case and a suspect has been charged, there’s been no public acknowledgement of her death or the community that has been further traumatized in its wake. And that’s wrong.

Reading the arrest affidavit or local news reports about the death, you’d have no idea that the victim was a transgender woman. The wild curls and wide grins from her Facebook page – and above all else, her chosen name – have been omitted to a staggering degree. Instead Loera has been described using her birth name and masculine pronouns.

--Nina Hernandez, Austin Chronicle