A 37-year-old Black transgender woman has been found dead from gunshot wounds near her home in Atlanta, according to a Georgia Voice report.
On Tuesday morning, police say Ashley Burton was shot while inside her home at the Elite at City Park Apartments where she was shot. She attempted to flee the scene but collapsed and died at a nearby breezeway, police say.
“She was a very sweet young lady,” Burton’s best friend told local news station WAGA. “She was very full of life really. It was always smiles and laughs with us whenever we work together.”
Her cousin, Ivory Carter, added that she was a makeup artist and hairstylist who had left her hometown of South Carolina and moved to Atlanta to elevate her career trajectory. She was also “a trained medic, a loving partner, a dear friend, a brave soul and so much more.”
“Why her? Why would it be somebody who’s trying to better herself, who’s trying to do right by people, who’s trying to help?” he questioned in an 11 Alive interview. “This got to be personal,” Carter said. “You shot her in her house, then you followed her outside and shot her.”
Carter revealed to reporters that he believes the suspect was someone Burton knew and trusted and took her cell phone after killing her.
Data shows Burton’s death marks at least the ninth violent death of a trans person in the country this year, according to Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents. It also marks the third killing of its kind in 2023.
The Human Rights Campaign has reported that most transgender people who are murdered are Black. In the state of Kentucky, the General Assembly has introduced five bills targeting the transgender community for discrimination, and “currently the ACLU is tracking 272 anti-LGBTQ bills in state legislatures across the country,” Queer Kentucky has reported.
“I’m tired of all these incidents with transgender women just being pushed up under the rug,” Carter said. “We are human beings.”
