Three people were charged with first-degree murder and a fourth is facing other charges after authorities discovered the burned body of a transgender teen in southern Missouri.
According to the Associated Press, the remains of 17-year-old Ally Steinfeld were discovered in a burn pile near the mobile home of one of the suspects, as well as in a bag inside of a chicken coop.
Two of the women facing first-degree murder charges reportedly told authorities that they helped burn Steinfeld’s body after a man gouged the teen’s eyes out and repeatedly stabbed her in the genitals.
“It is a grisly terrible series of heinous acts by the accused,” Texas County Prosecutor Parke Stevens Jr. told Houston Herald.
“We honestly don’t understand why they done it,” Boswell told Springfield News-Leader. “It just don’t make any sense.”
Steinfeld’s murder makes her the 21st known transgender person murdered in 2017. Transgender people ― particularly trans people of color ― face disproportionate violence compared to the rest of the LGBTQ community. GLAAD reports that 2016 was the deadliest year on record for the transgender community, with 26 reported murders ― almost entirely transgender women of color.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help Steinfeld’s family with funeral expenses.
The transgender activist Laverne Cox came to our attention when she first appeared on VH1's "I Want to Work for Diddy," which made her the first African-American transgender woman to be on a mainstream reality TV series. The show went on to win GLAAD's media award for outstanding reality program in 2009 where Cox accepted the honor and spoke about transgender visibility (VIDEO). Since appearing on Diddy's show, Cox got her own VH1 reality series, "TRANSform Me," which got its own GLAAD media award nomination in 2011. She then exploded within the entertainment industry after becoming a breakout star in the Netflix original series "Orange Is The New Black." The pioneer continues her advocacy in public engagements and frequently writes about trans issues for The Huffington Post.
Louis Gradon Sullivan (1955 - 1991)
In 1976 Lou G. Sullivan began applying for gender confirmation surgery, but was rejected because he identified as gay. At the time, "female-to-gay male transsexuality was not recognized by the medical/psychotherapeutic establishment as a legitimate form of gender dysphoria at that time." After mounting a successful campaign to get homosexuality removed from a list of objections which served to keep interested candidates from undergoing surgery, Sullivan finally obtained gender confirmation surgery in 1986. That same year he organized FTM, "the first peer-support group devoted entirely to female-to-male [transsexual and transvestite] individuals."
Michael Dillon (1915 - 1962)
Dillon was the first person known to have transitioned both hormonally and surgically from female to male. A British writer, physician, philosopher, and Buddhist, Dillon penned several books including, Self: A Study in Ethics and Endocrinology (1946), Growing Up into Buddhism (1960), The Life of Milarepa (1962), Imji Getsul (1962), and numerous articles. He was in love with another famous transgender person, Roberta Cowell, but she did not share his feelings. He died in India -- where he had moved to study, meditate, and wrote under the name Lobzang Jivaka -- just days after sending his memoir, "Out Of The Ordinary," to his literary agent.
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![In 1976 <a href="http://www.lousullivansociety.org/about-lou-sullivan.html" target="_hplink">Lou G. Sullivan began applying for</a> gender confirmation surgery, but was rejected because he identified as gay. At the time, "female-to-gay male transsexuality was not recognized by the medical/psychotherapeutic establishment as a legitimate form of gender dysphoria at that time." After mounting a successful campaign to get homosexuality removed from a list of objections which served to keep interested candidates from undergoing surgery, Sullivan finally obtained gender confirmation surgery in 1986. That same year <a href="http://www.lousullivansociety.org/about-lou-sullivan.html" target="_hplink">he organized FTM</a>, "the first peer-support group devoted entirely to female-to-male [transsexual and transvestite] individuals."](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/v7UnXI45Ch4c5uvZdxkOJg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MA--/https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/57eea7201b00000d0cef3894.jpg)
