Track Hate Crimes Against Trans People — Justice for Jayla McGee

Jayla McGee, a 19-year-old Black transgender teenager, was shot and killed in Belle Glade, Florida on July 5. Her death received almost no media coverage, and when her family announced it on social media, the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office referred to her as "an adult male." That erasure is not an accident. It is a pattern. You need to act on it. McGee was the 15th reported transgender person of color killed in the United States in 2025. A March report from JULIAN cataloged more than 150 hate crimes and suspicious deaths across seven Southern states, with over 50 cases involving transgender women. Federal hate crime reporting to the FBI is voluntary, which means these numbers are almost certainly undercounts. Jayla's younger sister Ronziyah was killed on the same block in 2022 and received extensive coverage from ABC affiliate WPBF. Jayla got silence. That disparity tells you everything about whose lives are treated as worth mourning. Read more: https://www.them.us/news/jayla-mcgee-florida-murder Make hate crime reporting to the FBI mandatory, and push for law enforcement standards that require victims to be identified by their correct name and gender. Jayla McGee deserved to be seen. So do the people who will be killed after her if nothing changes.