A trans woman was beaten and stripped during a horrifying assault outside a bar in Palm Springs, California.
The victim, Skyy Perez, says the incident, which was caught on camera, occurred on the evening of July 29, when her phone was reportedly stolen inside The Village, a bar in downtown Palm Springs. Perez approached a nearby woman to check her bag, but security escorted Perez out of the bar.
Perez was then attacked in the alleyway by the woman she had accused of taking her phone.
“She hit me with a sandal in the back of my head, and I fell to the floor, I kind of lost consciousness,” Perez told Palm Springs ABC affiliate KESQ. “And then the other two girls that were with her came and they were like basically jumping me and tore my clothes. I was in disbelief and a rage that I got hit for simply existing.”
Perez, who had been stripped down to her undergarments, spat at the women, only to be sucker-punched by an unidentified man.
The clip of the assault is circulating on social media, with many of those sharing it mocking trans women.
KESQ obtained security video from a nearby business showing multiple people involved in a much longer dispute. During the altercation, one woman can be seen throwing Perez’s wig onto the second story of a parking structure.
Perez’s friend, Daniella Pinea, who was with her that night, claims she’s been traumatized by the experience.
“I haven’t slept, I can’t even eat sometimes. Because it’s very traumatic that we have to go through this,” Pineda said. “Those people were hating because we were trans. And they couldn’t just wrap their brains around us being able to live our lives out authentically.”
Palm Springs police have confirmed the incident and are investigating it as a hate crime. However, no suspects have been identified or arrests made in the case.
David Mariner, the general manager of The Village, lamented the attack.
“For this to happen near our establishment makes us truly upset as we strive to be a leader in forward-thinking,” Mariner said in a statement. “We are all-inclusive. We don’t stand for anything that is hateful.”
Trans people are four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime, according to a 2021 analysis by the Williams Institute and published in the American Journal of Public Health. The analysis collected data on the gender identity and assigned sex at birth of crime victims, which was taken from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017 and 2018 National Crime Victimization Survey.
Despite the brutal attack, Perez is determined to live her life openly as a trans woman.
“It’s gonna make me want to live my truth even more,” she said.
Watch KESQ’s coverage of the videotaped assault below:
The Trump administration is refusing to answer questions from journalists who have their preferred pronouns listed in email signatures.
The policy abides by an executive order from President Donald Trump decreeing that the U.S. government will only recognize two sexes -- male and female -- as valid.
While the Trump administration has barred federal workers from listing preferred pronouns in email signatures as part of that order, it has also refused to respond to inquiries from journalists who engage in the practice on multiple occasions, reported The New York Times.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, of the District of Columbia, issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump's executive order banning transgender people from enlisting in the military, which also includes expelling transgender service members from the Armed Forces.
The federal judge found the Trump administration's ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it discriminates against trans service members on the basis of their transgender status and sex.
Reyes said Trump's executive order was "soaked in animus."
A transgender protester from Illinois was arrested for washing her hands in the women's bathroom at the Florida State Capitol.
But it wasn't because she was outed or reported to the police by another person.
Rather, she outed herself.
According to the Miami Herald, 20-year-old college student Marcy Rheintgen alerted Florida lawmakers of her intention to use the women's restroom in protest of the state's 2023 transgender bathroom ban, which prohibits transgender individuals from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in public buildings, universities, schools, public parks, or correctional institutions.
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