Domonique Newburn, Transgender Woman, Found Dead In Apartment

A transgender woman was found dead in her Fontana, Calif. home Tuesday, and witnesses say they saw the suspect take clothes, a computer and the victim’s car to get away. Police found Domonique Newburn’s body at around 4:30 p.m. after responding to domestic disturbance reports. Inside, they came across a grisly scene: there was blood on the porch and the door was left wide open, reports CBS Los Angeles. The position of Newburn’s body also indicated to investigators that she appeared to be trying to escape through a front window before she died, reports KTLA in the video above.

Details over at Huffington Post.

Transgender Woman Dies After Savage Beating, Possible Hate Crime, Cops Say

A transgender woman who was savagely beaten in Harlem on Saturday night died about noon Thursday, police said. Islan Nettles, 21, was taken off life support at Harlem Hospital after she was attacked in what police are investigating as a bias crime, cops said. The confrontation began when Nettles, who was out with another transgender woman, met a group of men on Saturday night about 11 p.m, cops say.

Continue reading here.

Editor’s Note: Rest in power, Dominique and Islan.

White Is the New White

‘Orange Is the New Black’ fans tell me I need to give the series a real chance. If I can just get through the first two episodes, I’ll be content by episode three. And so I watched and cringed through six whole episodes, called it quits and hope to never again see another one in my entire life. With very little exception, I saw wildly racist tropes: black women who, aside from fanaticizing about fried chicken, are called monkeys and Crazy Eyes; a Boricua mother who connives with her daughter for the sexual attentions of a white prison guard; an Asian woman who never speaks; and a crazy Latina woman who tucks away in a bathroom stall to photograph her vagina (the pornographic image is indiscriminately paraded throughout an entire episode).

Read more The Nation.

Celebrating Bayard Rustin: Coming Together to Honor the Architect of the 1963 March on Washington

In a new piece for Metro Weekly, NBJC Executive Director & CEO Sharon J. Lettman Hicks highlights the significance of Bayard Rustin’s legacy to the Black LGBT community: “Rustin was as unapologetically black as he was gay, and by his very presence challenged the evils of homophobia and racism throughout his life. His legacy leaves a salient lesson for us on the power of living authentically.”

More on Metro Weekly.

(Why) Does It Matter?: Raven Symoné’s Quiet Coming Out

In a perfect world, with all things equal, difference would be valued instead of evaluated. Truth is when folk announce or identify themselves as themselves there should not be a parade. It should not be newsworthy. But we don’t live in a perfect world. What we do live in is a heteronormative society that requires people to have to come out (or be labeled heterosexual). We assume that folk are heterosexual unless and until they tell us otherwise. This means, essentially, that sexuality always matters because people make assumptions and claims about who/what you are… and in order to quiet the assumptions you have to come out… and because assumptions of heterosexuality are so inherent and deeply ingrained folk have to keep coming out (ongoing process)… I imagine it is exhausting and anti-climactic.

More on Crunk Feminist Collective.

Obama calls [Atlanta hero Antoinette] Tuff, Suggests W.H. Invite

The woman who talked down an armed 20-year-old as he walked into an Atlanta-area elementary school may need to pack: President Barack Obama said he might be inviting her to the White House. Obama called Antoinette Tuff courageous and said she probably saved a lot of lives in an interview filmed Thursday and aired Friday morning on CNN’s “New Day.” “Here is somebody who is not just courage, not just cool under pressure, but also had enough heart that somehow she could convince somebody that was really troubled that she cared about him,” Obama said, according to CNN.

Continue reading on Politico.