A transgender woman was fatally stabbed to death while working at a barbershop in San Antonio last Wednesday.
Helle Jae O’Regan, 20, was inside the Diesel Barbershop, in northwest San Antonio, helping two other employees prepare for the shop’s post-COVID-19 reopening on May 8, when a man knocked on the door, saying he wanted to make a future appointment.
One of the employees unlocked the door, let him in and took down his name, but the man became angry after being asked to submit a form of payment.
The man walked outside the barbershop, only to return moments later with a backpack, a gun, and a knife. Footage from a surveillance camera shows the man threatening all three employees with the weapons, police told San Antonio NBC affiliate WOAI-TV.
According to police, the man then walked the employees to the back of the shop and placed O’Regan in a choke hold until she lost consciousness.
The other two employees ran out after Campbell turned to them, stabbing one several times while the other emerged unscathed. The employee who was stabbed was able to call for help at a nearby restaurant.
After the two others escaped, the man allegedly turned to O’Regan’s unconscious body and stabbed her repeatedly, killing her. He then fled the scene.
Police later arrested and charged 42-year-old Damion Campbell with murder. They told WOAI-TV that his name was displayed on a pop-up window on the barbershop’s computer when they arrived on scene.
The shop, which has delayed its opening until May 15, has since turned into a makeshift memorial to O’Regan, with friends and fellow LGBTQ community members leaving flowers and candles outside.
“Every time I saw her, she smiled. She’d do anything for you,” Luke Tyler, a friend of O’Regan’s, told San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT-TV. “She was a caring person. I never saw her in a bad mood.
“Being trans is so hard, and her life was hard, but she lived like it was the best day of her life every day,” Tyler said.
Robert Salcido, Jr., the executive director of Pride Center San Antonio, issued a statement mourning the loss of O’Regan, who had been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ rights, prison reform, and the decriminalization of sex work.
“We are disheartened to hear of a loss of a community member, especially a transgender woman, who are all too often faced with severe and deadly violence,” Salcido said.
“We are saddened to hear of the news about Helle O’Regan’s death,” Emmett Schelling, the executive director for the Transgender Education Network of Texas, said in a statement. “We mourn for Helle’s life being cut so prematurely, but take comfort in hearing how much joy she brought to those who knew, loved and accepted her fully as her authentic self.”
The Human Rights Campaign noted that O’Regan is the eleventh known transgender or gender-nonconforming person to be killed this year in the United States, and the sixth transgender woman to be killed in the past five weeks.
“For the past several weeks, we have learned of the violent deaths of transgender Americans at a rate that should be a shock and horror to every single person. We must all ask ourselves today: ‘What am I doing to ensure a world where a person’s gender identity is not a potential death sentence?'” Tori Cooper, HRC’s Director of Community Engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a statement.
“The Human Rights Campaign is standing with Helle’s family and friends in mourning today. Her death further underscores the dire and urgent need to end violence and discrimination against transgender people — and especially against transgender women — now.”
In Prime Video's new single-cam comedy series Clean Slate, Laverne Cox stars as Desiree, a glam New Yorker who retreats back home to small-town Alabama, hoping to reconnect with her car wash owner dad, Harry.
Harry, portrayed by veteran comedian George Wallace, is eagerly expecting the arrival of his long-estranged son, so he has some right to be shocked when he opens his door to find Desiree. Apparently, up till now, she's shared no news of her transition. "I've always been Desiree," she explains. "May I come in?"
At that point, not every average red-state dad would just roll with it and say, "Yeah, come on in." Some would, and that's what Harry does, despite his misgivings.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order paving the way for banning transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military by effectively declaring them unfit for service.
The president's order declares that the Armed Forces have been besieged by “radical gender ideology” under the past presidential administration to “appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion.”
The order states that “longstanding Department of Defense policy provides that it is the policy of the DoD to ensure that service members are ‘ree of medical conditions or physical defects that may reasonably be expected to require excessive time lost from duty for necessary treatment or hospitalization.
The CrossFit Games changed its eligibility policies to ban transgender athletes from competing in the category designated for their "gender assigned at birth."
"All athletes are welcome to participate in CrossFit Games events," the sport's 2025 rulebook reads. "However, to maintain fairness and the integrity of the competition, athletes must compete in the division corresponding to their gender assigned at birth."
The rulebook does not elaborate further and does not mention the words "trans" or "transgender."
Based on the reference to "fairness," the policy appears to be primarily targeted at transgender women to prevent them from competing in female-designated events.
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