• ELIXHER
• On September 9, 2013

The transformation of Islan Nettles over the last year was something her friends and relatives discussed with barely concealed awe.

After years of often being hungry and on the verge of homelessness, Ms. Nettles, 21, had recently moved into her own apartment, found a job at an H & M clothing store and was designing her own fashion line.

Most important, she had begun to live publicly as transgender. Seemingly overnight, friends and relatives said, she had metamorphosed from a shy and insecure youth into a radiantly confident young woman.

Source: New York Times

And then she was killed.

Just after midnight on Aug. 17, a young man knocked her to the ground after learning she was transgender and struck her with his fists until she was unconscious and battered beyond recognition, according to accounts from the police and friends. She lingered in a coma for less than a week before being taken off life support.

The beating occurred on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem, near her childhood home and across the street from the station house of Police Service Area 6, which patrols public housing projects in the area.

Ms. Nettles’s death has incensed New York’s transgender community. Many have experienced violence themselves and have spent years overcoming past abuse, depression and thoughts of suicide. And though the leaps toward equality made by gay men and lesbians in recent years seem to have left transgender people behind, they have become more visible in politics, entertainment and sports.

Continue reading on the New York Times.