Denver Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspects involved in an attack outside a downtown bar that left a transgender woman with severe injuries and her face paralyzed.
The attack took place on Sunday, April 28, around 1:20 a.m. as the victim was leaving the Tavern Lodo.
Cell phone video shows the victim, Amber Nicole, almost getting into a car, before turning back towards the bar. The attack occurs off camera, but she is later seen being helped into a car by a friend.
Amber said her friend realized they were both covered in blood because she was bleeding so much from the attack.
Her friend drove Amber to the the hospital, where she was treated for broken bones in her face and a broken jaw, which had to be wired shut. She also suffered nerve damage that left the right side of her face partially paralyzed.
Doctors say they don’t know if it will be permanent, reports Denver’s CBS 4.
Police are asking anyone with information about the attack to contact them via their Crime Stoppers hotline at 720-913-7867.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help Amber with medical costs. Amber says she and other transgender people are just trying to live their lives, but some people can’t seem to accept their existence.
Her mother, Juls Martinez, says she’s angry that no one stepped in to stop the attack or report it to police.
“I was horrified to see my baby like that and all I could do was thank God that she was alive, but then I didn’t even know if she would wake up,” Martinez said. “Then I was just so angry because things were running through my head like how? Who? Why?! … There’s so many people who can see an incident and stop it or do something about, or make a report about it, but nobody does and I don’t understand why.”
Trans-Latinx DMV is holding a rally on March 31 to commemorate the Trans Day of Visibility.
The rally, to be held in Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle from 5 to 8 p.m., will serve as both a celebration of the Trans Day of Visibility and a show of resistance against the harmful policies currently targeting the transgender community.
The rally's theme, "Por el Reconocimiento de Mi Identidad" ("For the Recognition of My Identity") will honor the resilience of the transgender community and amplify the voices and stories of transgender individuals, especially those within the Latinx community, at a time when transgender existence is under attack.
Thanks to the Trump administration, policing gender is becoming the norm -- and it's about much more than trans women.
By Riki Wilchins
March 29, 2025
A Tucson Walmart called the police on a Black "stud"-identified lesbian last month, claiming a man had entered the women's room.
The two male Pima County sheriff's deputies accosted 19-year-old Kalaya Morton just after she had used a tampon and while she was in the stall still trying to pee.
They demanded that she come out immediately, which she was unable to do. Even after she finished her business and exited the stall, lifting her shirt to show the two men that she was a cisgender woman, one of the male deputies still complained that Kalaya "looked like a man."
West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed a bill that effectively erases the existence of transgender people from state law.
Surrounded by anti-trans advocates, Morrisey signed the "Riley Gaines Act" -- named after the former collegiate swimmer-turned-anti-LGBTQ activist -- into law.
The law defines the terms "man" and "woman" based on a person's biological anatomy at the time of birth in the state code.
For all legal purposes, the state will not recognize the gender of any person who identifies outside of the gender binary or identifies as a gender that does not align with their assigned sex at birth.
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