After two black transgender women were killed in South Carolina in just over two weeks, Charleston and national LGBTQ groups say the situation is "an absolute state of emergency."
The latest victim was identified as 24-year-old Dime Doe by family and the Alliance for Full Acceptance, a Charleston-based LGBTQ advocacy organization.
Doe was found Sunday by a passerby, slumped over the steering wheel of her car in the area of Concord Church and Barnwell roads in Allendale County, according to the State Law Enforcement Division. She had been shot.Â
"This disturbing rash of violence underscores how dangerous it is to simply exist as a transgender person in America, particularly for transgender women of color,"Â said Sarah McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ civil rights organization.Â
Episode 9: Understand SC podcast explores how hate crime laws work and how South Carolina doesn't have them.
Little information on the circumstances surrounding Doe's death was available as of Thursday, and Allendale County law enforcement agencies declined to release basic information about the case.
Repeated requests to the Allendale County Coroner's Office for the victim's name, age and cause and manner of death were denied.
When asked to explain why the information was being withheld, a Coroner's Office representative said, "All I can say is I'm not releasing anything."
The Allendale County Sheriff's Office declined to release an incident report on Wednesday despite SLED clearing the report for release. A sheriff's representative could not be reached Thursday.Â
Doe's death comes about two weeks after Denali Stuckey, a 29-year-old transgender woman of color, was fatally shot July 20 in North Charleston.Â
Chase Glenn, AFFA's executive director, said Doe's death should be a wake-up call to the broader community.
"We are sounding the alarm," Glenn said. "We are in an absolute state of emergency for black transgender women."
The motives behind the homicide aren't known but these kinds of crimes are often fueled by prejudice, racism and misogyny, he said.Â
"Black trans women live at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities, are too often treated as disposable and are experiencing epidemic levels of violence," Glenn said.
Doe is the fourth transgender woman of color killed in South Carolina since 2018.Â
In 2018, at least 26 transgender people were killed in incidents of violence nationwide, according to the Human Rights Campaign. So far in 2019, 15 trans people have been killed.
