Trans woman live-streamed the moment a man attacked her on Facebook Live
A trans woman live-streamed the moment she was attacked by a thug, while on the way to an LGBT conference.
23-year-old Ryannah Quigley of Seattle had been in Philadelphia to attend the LGBTQ Creating Change conference earlier this month.
She was walking through streets of city last Friday afternoon when a man began hurling homophobic and transphobic slurs at her.
Scared of what might happen, Ms Quigley took out her phone and began recording the encounter on Facebook Live – just in time to capture the moment the man puncher her in the face.
Police were able to identify the man from the video, and arrested a 25-year old in connection with the attack the next day.
She told NBC: “I said, ‘Is there a reason why you’re staring at me up and down?’ And he stopped and turned and looked and he said, ‘Whatever bro.’ So that’s when I said, ‘Please don’t call me bro’.
“He just kept telling me, ‘You’re a f****t,’ and ‘You’re going to hell.’ Then he kept saying, ‘You’ll never be a real woman’.
“I kind of blacked out emotionally – I was just in shock, because it happened so quickly.”
Explaining the decision to film the incident, she said: “Often times we are not believed… we are often looked at as the problem. Because as trans women people assume that, ‘Oh, you must have been hitting on him’.
“Transgender individuals, they are people, they are living and they will continue to be here.”
The video of the attack has since been removed from Facebook for “violating the terms of service”, but Ms Quigley has shared it with local media.
How did this story make you feel?
