Another Black trans woman has been killed this year and her name is Ja’Leyah-Jamar Berryman.

Shot to death on Friday by a man who she once dated, Berryman is the 19th transgender woman whose death has been reported, according to Advocate. Police and local media outlets in Kansas City, Kansas, initially identified the victim as a man, but friends, family and activists stepped in on social media to properly gender Berryman.

“Ja’leyah-Jamar didn’t ask for this life… ” Adriana Sanders, the victim’s cousin, wrote on Facebook. “No one can control WHO they love God made us to live and love and to grow… It’s not our fault as a Transgender woman or a homosexual man to want to live a normal life…wanting to be in love have a family build your own legacy and because a Man could not accept who he was as himself and individual he felt the need to take my cousin’s life.”

In June, another Black trans woman, Brooklyn Lindsey, was killed across the state line in Kansas City, Missouri.

Berryman had a five-year-old daughter named Ja’Mya.

“I’ll never be the same,” the victim’s mother Jennifer Gibson told KSHB, pleading with the public to put an end to violence. “Once that trigger is pulled, it's too late. You can't go back. Put the guns down.”

According to reports, the alleged gunman is an ex of the victim. Kansas City Police have released a photo of the suspect and his vehicle used in Berryman's killing.

The Kansas City Anti-Violence Project issued a statement in response to the transgender killings of Lindsey and Berryman:

“As we hold space to remember and uplift Ja'Leyah, we must also recognize the factors at play that contribute to the dramatically increased risk of violence that trans women of color — especially Black trans women — face every day. Restrictions on basic needs and services like housing, employment, safe streets, healthcare, and protection under the law are just some barriers that put our sisters in harm's way daily," the statement read in part.

"The discriminatory and violent systems that perpetuate violence against transgender women of color are a direct result of bias from within and outside our own communities," it continued. "Ja'leyah's light shone to a select few, but we will let her light shine on all of us today.”

Ja'leyah-Jamar

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