Geri Judd Is 2021's Latest Confirmed Trans Homicide Victim

Yet another transgender American has been confirmed as a homicide victim in 2021, bringing the year's record total to 57.

Geri Judd was found shot to death at her apartment in Bossier City, La., September 28. Unlike some trans homicide victims, she was not deadnamed or misgendered in initial reports, but her trans identity has just recently been acknowledged.

"Geri was one of the first trans people I had met," friend Michael Chisum told the Shreveport Times in February. "Geri had done all the work and followed all the legal steps to transition including paperwork and ID." She often attended marches for Transgender Day of Remembrance and other trans events.

Chisum, who had known Judd since he was 8 years old and she was a teenager, recalled her walking with a cane in a 2020 march calling for justice for Vontashia Bell, a Black trans woman who was killed in 2018. No arrest has been made in Bell's death.

Judd, whose age was not reported, was one of three confirmed trans homicide victims in the Shreveport-Bossier City area between October 2020 and October 2021. The others are Brooklyn DeShauna Smith and Pooh Johnson.

"Though it was difficult, Geri Judd made the journey of marches for trans rights using her cane in recent years to fight for her community," said a statement from Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Human Rights Campaign's Transgender Justice Initiative. "Her dedication to advocating for the trans community was clear in the way she lived, and her death will be a loss for the movement. We're so grateful to the advocates who worked with authorities to be sure Geri was respectfully identified in the investigation. This trend of fatal violence against trans and gender-nonconforming folks must end in Louisiana and throughout the country."

The total of trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming people who died by violence in 2021, at 57, is the most since activists and media have been keeping track, since about 2013. The total for any year is likely much higher due to deadnaming, misgendering, and lack of reporting in general.

Anyone with information about Judd's death is asked to call the Bossier City Police Department at (318) 741-8610 or Crime Stoppers at (318) 424-4100. Those with information can also submit an anonymous tip online via the P3 Tips app or online at www.p3tips.com.