Yella Clark
Age 452 Apr 2024
Angola, Louisiana (USA)
Killed In custody
TDoR list ref: tgeu/tdor2024/2-Apr-2024/Yella (Robert) Clark Jr.
Yella died after an altercation with three other inmates.
Yella, a 45-year-old Black transgender person, who was serving a life sentence at Angola prison in Louisiana, was killed in a fight with several other inmates on April 2, 2024. Their death is at least the 16th violent killing of a transgender or gender expansive person HRC has learned of in 2024, and the fifth to be killed in the month of April alone. We say “at least” because too often these deaths go unreported — or misreported. The Human Rights Campaign is deeply saddened to report on Yella’s passing.
With Yella, misreporting and misgendering in initial reports led to delays in HRC’s own reporting. Most articles referred to them with their birth name and sex assigned at birth, though evidence suggests Clark may have used both Yella and Robert (their birth name) in prison. They identified as transgender, had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and had begun taking female hormones to physically transition while incarcerated. We do not know which pronouns they used, or which name they preferred, but we will be using Yella and they/them pronouns throughout the rest of this blog.
A former fellow inmate said that Clark’s [gender identity] was something that made life more dangerous for Clark at Angola.
"You can be a target," they said. "That kind of thing can make things a little bit more dangerous for you."
The 2015 United States Transgender Survey found that transgender prisoners are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted by facility staff and over nine times more likely to be sexually assaulted by other inmates.
Yella was in Angola on a murder conviction which they were trying to have overturned. In an appeals court filing, they argued they were defending themselves from being raped and the killing was in self-defense.
https://www.hrc.org/news/honoring-yella-robert-clark-jr-transgender-inmate-killed-in-louisiana
