Kandii Redd, Award-Winning Trans Performer, Killed in Kansas City

Kandii Redd, 29, a Black transgender woman and award-winning performer, was stabbed to death July 25 in Kansas City, Mo.

There was "an argument that led to a physical altercation," reports TV station KMBC, which misgendered her. Police found Redd in an apartment and called paramedics to treat her, but she was pronounced dead.

Redd had been a model for the adult entertainment site Grooby. "Kandii first worked for us in 2010, becoming one of the more popular models on the site and appearing in 20 scenes for BlackTgirls as well as other sites," Grooby reports. "In 2014, she was honored as the 'Black Tgirls Model of the Year' at the Transgender Erotica Awards."

She was also known by the names Dee Dee Kandii Redd and Kamila Marie Swan.

Anyone with information that could lead to an arrest is asked to call the Kansas City Police Department's Homicide Unit at (816) 234-5043 or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-TIPS.

Redd "deserved a long and full life filled with joy and hope -- just like each and every one of us," Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Human Rights Campaign's Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a press release. "Yet again, we mourn for one of our own taken far too soon. Yet again, we find ourselves asking how we can stem the tide of fatal violence that too many Black transgender women face. I don't yet know how, but I do know we must."

So far this year, 27 trans Americans have died by violence, most of them Black women. That follows a year in which a record 57 such deaths were reported. The number in any given year is likely higher, as many victims are deadnamed or misgendered, or their deaths not reported at all.