Two transgender women were attacked at a Minneapolis light rail station — and onlookers cheered on the perpetrators rather than helping the victims, Media Take Out has learned.
After overhearing a group making derogatory remarks toward them at the station at Hennepin Avenue and Fifth Street in downtown Minneapolis, the trans pair “confronted” the group, which led to a “physical altercation,” Minneapolis Police told the media in a statement.
Community organizers held a rally at the site on Sunday in solidarity with the two transgender women, Dahlia and Jess.
Dahlia and Jess were leaving the station when a man started yelling transphobic slurs at them, Amber Muhm, a rally organizer who spoke to both of them after the incident, told the media. Jess asked him to stop talking to them that way, prompting the man to “sucker punch” her. Dahlia then struck the man with her cane, and knocked him unconscious.
Although the man was “knocked out,” four or five other people ran up and began to “mercilessly beat” the two transgender women, Muhm said.
“People were cheering the attackers on,” Muhm said. Both of them were knocked unconscious and Dahlia was left with a broken nose while Jess suffered “multiple contusions” on her ribs.
Here’s video:
Black Trans Woman Brutally Beaten In Minneapolis Tuesday. My heart hurts for #IyannaDior. This is a sad reminder that trans women of color are the most vulnerable in our LGBT community. They regularly are assaulted, cast aside by their families and WORSE. We must do better! pic.twitter.com/1CQJSsUXga
