Let’s Stop Deadnaming the Dead

Transfolk and Sex Workers Deserve Respect in Life and Death.

Kandii Redd was one of the thousands of transwomen who have worked with Grooby Productions. Entering the adult industry in 2012, she became familiar and her work well-respected enough to earn the 2014 Transgender Erotica Awards (TEA) trophy for Black T-Girls Model of the Year. Ironically, even with more than 20 scenes for Grooby, a coveted award, and enviable good looks, none of these are what made her momentarily famous in her local mainstream press.

That took her murder.

Early on the evening of July 24, 2022, Kandii was engaged in a heated verbal confrontation with someone who may have been an intimate. We know this because the police responded to a call at 6:40 pm about a “cutting.” By the time she made it to the hospital, she had bled out and could not be saved. This is sadly not a huge surprise, since women, both cis and trans, are killed by intimate partners at shocking rates. Kandii was at least the 25^th trans or gender non-conforming person murdered in 2022, and we still have four months left.

Unlike the average murder victim, trans victims are much like sex workers in the level of disrespect shown to them both before and after death. It’s not enough that the general public, including the media and law enforcement, reinforce stereotypes by misgendering, deadnaming, and doxing those in the trans and sex worker communities.

Whether they do it consciously or unconsciously, each contributes toward erasure and sensationalism. In Kandii’s case, she was misgendered and deadnamed not merely in news articles but also on her own obituary webpage and cemetery headstone. Her work in adult has been watered down to that of “model and performer” without mention of what kind.

That’s because sex workers encounter the same disrespect when they suffer injury or harm, however slight or great. The average American absolutely needed to know Stormy Daniels’ “real” name when it was revealed she’d given the now-former but then not-yet-president Donald Trump a pity fuck. Whether the guy was a treason weasel wasn’t important. What was on Stormy’s birth certificate? Vital to the nation’s security!

Apparently, this sensationalism instead of genuine information narrative satisfies something in someone, because it’s so prevalent. Presumably, it’s cherished by people who believe that being transgender or a sex worker should be punishable with death and being the villain in their own victimization.

Were they only “normal,” goes the reasoning, this would never happen. By forcibly returning the porn star or the transperson to their “normal” state via information that nobody needs to know but everyone can have a visceral moral reaction to, the victim of violent crime becomes responsible for their own suffering because they have strayed from the narrow path of respectable society.

In my opinion, transfolk and sex workers make us examine our place in heaven and earth’s hierarchy, which makes many of us uncomfortable since so few of us know who we are, let alone where we fit in the grand scheme of things. As long as we’re “normal,” we tell ourselves, we’ll be safe, while those who refuse to conform will/should expect to pay the price for their spiritual failings.

It is ironic to the point of hypocrisy that so much outrage exists over things like the horrific practice of “honor killings” that is practiced among some extremist Muslim sects, while the U.S. tolerates high rates of murder and rape of our trans, sex worker, pregnant, and gender non-conforming populations.

With more than half of all trans and non-binary people reporting intimate partner violence during the past year and two-thirds of all trans and non-binary murder victims with known killers having their lives taken by acquaintances, friends, family members, or intimate partners, the distinction is meaningless.

Ultimately, as is the case in so many areas, we need to stop just moralizing about the failings of others and start “normalizing” a culture of kindness, acceptance, and community within ourselves. Be the change, see the change.

We can’t change the world all at once or all by ourselves, but together we can effect change and elevate understanding. We can contact our political representatives, write to the editors of publications, donate time and finances to related causes, and support businesses that are trans and sex worker friendly. Perhaps most importantly, we can become better informed and model good behavior ourselves.

We knew her as Kandii Redd. Say her name.