Activist Shon Faye to pay tribute to trans woman stabbed to death at Amnesty International’s Women Making History Festival
Faye will also pay tribute to the transgender activists who lost their lives.
Trans writer and comedian Shon Faye will pay tribute to Naomi Hersi, a trans woman who was killed in London in March, at Amnesty International UK’s Women Making History Festival today (May 20).
Naomi Hersi, 36, was stabbed to death in a London hotel room near Heathrow Airport in March. Hersi was found with knife injuries and pronounced dead at the scene 30 minutes later.
Horrifically, Hersi’s final Twitter post was a Vice article entitled Trans Women of Color Face an Epidemic of Violence and Murder. Meanwhile, 24-year-old Jesse McDonald and a 17-year-old girl were charged with Hersi’s murder.
Now, Shon Faye, who will be hosting the Women Making History Festival, will pay tribute to Hersi as well as trans activists around the world who have lost their lives.
Speaking about Hersi, Faye said: “Naomi Hersi was a fun loving 36-year-old trans woman of Somali heritage who was stabbed to death in London in March of this year.
“For several days, the British media did not report on her death and when they did they frequently used the wrong name, misgendered her or otherwise belittled the way she had lived and died – as a woman.”
She continued: “It is trans women in sex work, disabled trans women and working-class trans women who do not share my advantages who must be centred in women’s human rights work.
“Instead of answering my critics I pay tribute to those women – because as long as trans women in the UK and around the world are being beaten, being sanctioned, being brutalised, being raped, being killed or surviving, thriving, living, laughing, loving, and drying as women are then it is right and just that we are able to access the support and solidarity of feminist and women’s community.”