Trans TikToker Brianna Ghey killed in stabbing
Brianna Ghey, a UK-based transgender TikToker, was killed on Saturday. Ghe was 16.
As several British media reported yesterday, Ghey was fatally stabbed in Warrington, England. Warrington Police tweeted that two teenagers, both 15-year-old locals, were arrested “on suspicion of murder” in connection with Ghey’s death.
In addition to being a student, Ghey was also a TikToker. Her account, @gingerpuppyx, reportedly had over 63,000 followers The Telegraph, who also reported that Ghey posted to the platform “only hours” before her death. Ghey’s TikTok account is no longer active, although duets and screen captures of their videos remain.
In a duet from one of Ghey’s videos showing her playing with her hair, queer TikToker @faerie_finder tearfully says, “I’m so sorry we couldn’t protect you.”
@faerie_finder #duet with @gingerpuppyx We’re the adults, we should face the danger, not you. You shouldn’t have been so brave and I’m sorry. Rest off darling. Let’s take it from here. #BriannaGhey #protecttranskids #protectkids ♬ Original sound – Isobel
Ghey’s family, who live in Birchwood, England, said the teenager was “beautiful, funny and hilarious” and that her death “left a huge hole in her life [their] family,” the BBC reported.
According to Trans Murder Monitoring, 14 transgender people were murdered in Europe in 2022. In the US, where anti-trans rhetoric is already in more than 20 bills by 2023, 51 trans people were murdered last year.
In response to Ghey’s murder, the Trans Safety Network, a UK-based non-profit organization, tweeted that “Brianna Ghey’s death is a failure of our society at the deepest level”.
“Whatever the specific circumstances that led to her death, we are living through an unprecedented time of moral distaste for trans people, encouraged and made possible by the apathy and complicity of powerful public figures,” the network said in its statement.
The organization also pointed out that Brianna’s trans identity has been publicly disregarded by the “press,” apparently referring to the failure of several news outlets to mention Ghey in the initial coverage of her transgender death.
in one tweet from yesterday, Rin (@touchmyteapot) shows this in SkyNews’ Sunday articles on Ghey, The IndependentBBC and the guardthe term “trans” was not mentioned.
“They write article after article, incite hate, spread fear and fabricate lies about us,” Rin tweeted about the media. “Then do whatever it takes to hide who we are and therefore the potential nature of the crime if it kills us.”
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*Initial publication: February 13, 2023 at 2:30 p.m. CST
Tricia Crimmins
Tricia Crimmins is the IRL Editor at the Daily Dot. She is also a New York-based comedian and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She has previously written for Mashable, Complex Networks and Moment magazine. She can be found on Twitter at @TriciaCrimmins.
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