Chicago Trans Woman, Selena Reyes-Hernandez, Fatally Shot After Disclosing Her Identity

The below article contains descriptions of anti-transgender violence.

Even with increased awareness around the violence that often befalls transgender Black and Brown women, yet another sad incident underscores the work that remains to make it abundantly clear that trans lives need to be valued and protected.

During the height of protests around the country after the killing of George Floyd, a transgender woman in Chicago was killed after she told an intimate partner that she is trans.

Selena Reyes-Hernandez, 37, lived in the Marquette Park neighborhood on the city’s South Side. Reyes-Hernandez is at least the 16th person known to have been killed in an act of anti-transgender violence this year.

Although there are no indications that they previously knew each other, Reyez-Hernandez lived mere blocks away from her killer, who shot her multiple times in her home, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Orlando Perez, 18, went home with Reyes-Hernandez and during the occasion, he proceeded to ask whether or not she’s a girl. Once he learned about her trans identity, he abruptly told her he needed to leave.

After he left, according to surveillance footage, he returned about 20 minutes later at 6 a.m., took out a handgun and racked the slide on it as he approached the building. Her door was open and Perez entered, shooting Reyes-Hernandez in the head and in the back, he told prosecutors. But he couldn’t get her off of his mind after leaving, and surveillance cameras show that he came back a second time. Reyes-Hernandez was already dead, but he shot her multiple times again, he confessed. She was already laid face down on the floor.

Someone in the building heard the loud noises and checked on Reyes-Hernandez later that morning, and found her body in the apartment.

Perez is being held without bond until his next day in court on July 6. During the bond hearing on June 16, he smiled several times after lowering his face mask, trying to give a statement, however his public defender warned him not to speak.

According to a 2017 report from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, people of color and transgender or gender nonconforming (TGNC) people were most often victims of hate violence homicides. During that year of tracking hate violence, which is the most recent information available, 71% of victims were people of color, 52% were TGNC, 40% were transgender women of color.