Hollywood Trans Community On Alert After Murder

[William769]

After a transgender woman was murdered in Hollywood Thursday night, and another one shot at in a West Hollywood park, the community is mobilizing.

A Guatemalan-born transgender woman named Valerie told the Los Angeles Times that phone traffic among the Hollywood trans community "just exploded" after news broke that the body of 32-year-old Cassidy Vickers was found in a Hollywood street, dead from a shotgun wound to the chest. An hour later in West Hollywood's Plummer Park, a man attempted to rob a transgender woman. He shot at her, but missed.

Lexington Avenue and Gower Street in Hollywood is home to many transgender women; some work as prostitutes. While some community members laid a small memorial for Vickers on Friday, other residents complained of the brazen sex work conducted in the neighborhood.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/11/20/Hollywood_Trans_Community_On_Alert_After_Murder/