US: Trans women attacked, beaten and stripped on Atlanta train
Two trans women in Georgia were assaulted and stripped, while a crowd of onlookers filmed and cheered the attackers on.
Janell Crosby and Tyra Woods say they were on their way to the station on Tuesday when they were pursued by a group of men, who heckled them and made transphobic comments.
The men followed them onto the train, before kicking them, beating them, and pulling their clothes off, while an onlooker filmed.
Crosby told WSB: “[They] just kept of asking us was we real.
“Like really trying to get us. ‘Are you real?’, ‘Are y’all this or that?’ Just trying to embarrass us.”
“I really didn’t want to fight, but he just kicked me and tried to make a big scene.”
The video of the attack was posted on Flyvidz by an onlooker with the title “2 T******S GET INTO A FIGHT WITH 2 GUYS ON ATL MARTA!”, and has 2.5 million views.
Woods said: “It’s all over the internet and like, I’m naked.”
“I felt like since it was in a public transportation, we should’ve felt like we should’ve been secure.”
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) officials say they were not made aware of the incident at the time, as none of the onlookers attempted to raise alarm, alert the emergency services or help the women.
MARTA spokesperson Lyle Harris said: “We will not tolerate this kind of behaviour on MARTA.
“We are now taking this under investigation. The MARTA Police Department is looking at what happened on that tape to see if we can determine who was involved and what happened and we will take every action.”
“We depend on our customers to help us make sure the system is as safe as possible.
“We do a great job, we have a very safe transit system; unfortunately, we will have events that happen and we depend on customers to give us information when it does.”
Note: An earlier version of this story erroneously went out with the flag belonging to the country of Georgia, not the state of Georgia. We apologise for the error.
