Gigi Pierce
Age 2821 May 2018
Portland, Oregon (USA)
Shot
TDoR list ref: tgeu/21-May-2018/Gigi Pierce
Gigi was shot on the sidewalk on Southwest 2nd Avenue sometime before 11:08pm on Monday 21st May 2018. She died at the scene.
Sophia Adler (33) has been arrested and charged with murder.
According to friends Gigi was in the early stages of transition, and was homeless at the time of her murder.
My Bébé was an incredibly loving, gifted, beautiful disaster," says Jason Johnson, who formerly dated Pierce. "I don't want her to be reduced to a statistic, a number, or a stereotype."
Friends described Pierce as both "full of laughter and light" and "deeply troubled." She grappled all year with transitioning, starting to identify as Gigi. Many in Portland's LGBTQ community still knew her by her male-assigned name and pronouns and did not know she was trans, according to friend Dawn Higgins-Wither.
Local news station KATU spoke to a witness they called Amber:
"I heard Gigi say, 'Don't touch me,'" Amber told KATU. "And the woman came up and hit Gigi in the face with her purse. That kinda set Gigi off. Gigi went to hit her, pulled back to hit her and the next thing I know my ear's ringing. There had been a gunshot. It all happened so fast. It always does. It all happened so fast."
The Advocate and Oregon Live, 23.05.2018
https://transgriot.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/number-11-rest-in-power-gigi-pierce.html
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2018/05/police_investigating_death_of.html
