A transgender woman in Memphis, Tennessee is in a critical condition after she was shot in the face. Leeneshia Edwards' friends say she worked as a prostitute, and her cousin believes the shooting was a hate crime. The police say there were no eye witnesses at the scene when they arrived, so have no description of the shooter, but believe the shot was fired at point-blank range. The attack on Edwards is the forth transphobic shooting in three years. The other three died of their injuries. "This is part of a nation wide rise in anti-LGBTI hate crimes which has occurred in the last two years as the fight over rights for gays, lesbians and transpeople has ratchetted up," reports the website Lez Get Real. "Some of the rise in hate crimes has come from greater reporting of these crimes by the victims of them, and of the increase in recognition of what constitutes a hate crime. Still, statistics have shown a rise in hate crimes in general."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Sunday, 28th December 2008 - 4:41pm