The mother of Zoella “Zoey” Martinez, a Latina transgender woman fatally shot north of Maple Valley in August 2021, said her family’s life still feels empty more than a year after her daughter’s death.
“She was a big part of our life, ours and our family,” said Deborah Martinez, of Maple Valley, who recalled her daughter as funny and loving.
In the wake of Trans Day of Remembrance, a day observed annually Nov. 20 that honors transgender people who have faced fatal violence, Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community is still grappling with the loss of Martinez and other transgender people, including trans advocate Rikkey Outumuro, who was also killed in Washington last year.
Zoey Martinez’s murder comes amid a rise in violent crimes targeting transgender people across the U.S. The anniversary of Martinez’s death fell about three months before a gunman killed five people, including two trans individuals, and injured 18 others in a mass shooting Nov. 19 at Club Q in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
This year, at least 32 transgender people have been killed in the U.S., with trans women of color constituting a majority of these deaths, per the Human Rights Campaign. Last year, five transgender people were killed in the Pacific Northwest, per HRC. And more than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were filed in 2022, with most targeting transgender youth in sports and health care.
Now, trans advocates in Seattle and beyond are calling for more services to help keep transgender people safe.
“A lot of our organizations were gutted by COVID … a lot of [communities] are still harmed by the loss of organizations,” said Oliver Webb, executive director of the Diversity Alliance of the Puget Sound. With the family’s permission, the Diversity Alliance of the Puget Sound was the first to publicly identify Martinez as part of the transgender community, and Webb provided support to the family during the case.
“You did see a clear wake-up call in these deaths and a need for action,” Webb said, “but also an unknown of how to get that because a lot of the money ran dry.”
“I’m going to call myself Zoey”
Allyson Missler, 21, of Seattle, said she met Martinez while at a gay-straight alliance club at Tahoma Junior High School. Missler said the teenager appeared hopeful about starting her transition.
“‘My hair’s going to be so long and … I’m gonna call myself Zoey,’” Missler recalled Martinez saying. “She was so excited.”
Another classmate, Natalie Nordell, recalled Martinez as a bubbly and friendly teenager whom she met in a dance class.
“She was a character,” said Nordell, 21, of Maple Valley. “She always had a story to tell. … I never wanted to cut her off from telling her stories because it was so much more fun to talk and listen and hang out.”
Martinez’s upbeat spirit and confidence in her identity were not always met with kindness, but often outright hostility. That was the case at school in Maple Valley, a small town Nordell describes as largely conservative.
Nordell said Martinez was taunted for wearing makeup and that she changed in a private stall for gym and dance instead of the girls locker room, adding that Martinez was one of the only out transgender people Nordell knew in the district.
Nordell said Martinez’s death underscores the challenges facing the transgender community.
“It really made me realize just how backwards small towns like mine can be,” Nordell said of the bullying in school. “I was naive to think, ‘Oh, well, she was bullied back then, but like, it seems like everything’s fine now’ … but, that’s not the state of the world, that’s not the reality.”
Deborah Martinez knows this burden all too well. She said she was pleasantly surprised by the droves of people who attended memorials honoring her daughter last year.
“There were people that would be Zooming from different places,” Deborah Martinez said. “I was shocked that my Zoey brought so many people together.”
Leading up to her death last summer, Zoey Martinez was scheduled to have a gender-confirming procedure that would align her body with her gender, her mother said. She was killed just weeks before the surgery was scheduled to occur.
“The only thing I cared about is that I wanted her to be happy,” Deborah Martinez said, adding that her daughter wanted her body to match “what she visualized.”
Last August, Zoey Martinez, 20, was shot to death after meeting with 24-year-old Jacaree Rashad Hardy in a parking lot. Her body was found in an alley outside a fire station in Seattle, according to King County prosecutors. Martinez believed Hardy stole money from her bank account and attempted to get her money back, the charges said.
Hardy was arrested and charged with murder and unlawful possession of a firearm last October. He remains jailed on a $5 million bail.
“Most of our deaths go unnoticed”
In 1999, trans advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith began Transgender Day of Remembrance to highlight the brutal death of Rita Hester, a Black transgender woman who was stabbed multiple times in her apartment.
After Martinez’s death, Me’Jour Mook, the transgender economic empowerment coordinator at People of Color Against AIDS Network, said she felt fearful for others in the trans community.
“It really made me sad and emotional because it could be me,” Mook said.
POCAAN, which provides employment resources and social services to LGBTQ+ people of color and others in the King County area, held a vigil in late November to honor slain transgender people of color.
Mook said it’s not only important to recognize trans victims but to provide tools to combat violence. Mook said she is creating a peer support group for transgender people and allies, including friends, family members and partners, to bridge this gap.
“Most of our deaths go unnoticed and unheard,” Mook said. “I think it’s really needed to educate folks on how to stay safe.”
“People can learn that as we transition our community and our loved ones and our partners are also transitioning with us,” Mook said. “To understand our communities we have to get them to be educated on who we are as trans folks and also we have to share the challenges and the struggles that we face.”
The Diversity Alliance of the Puget Sound continues to tackle anti-trans stigma through education and awareness, including workshops on responding to transphobic harassment online and in-person.
On a personal note, Webb, the alliance’s executive director, said Zoey Martinez has a special place in his heart and he hopes the family can soon find healing.
“The community had a woman who was so young taken from them,” Webb said. “Our community is told constantly to live in fear and that is what hangs over us as long as these trials continue on.”