Deathscapes

The Streets 10h - The Vulnerability of Trans Women

Deathscapes

The Vulnerability of Indigenous Trans Women: Alloura Wells

At a Trans March two people hold up placards. One reads 'Justice for Alloura' with a photo of Alloura at the bottom right and love hearts drawn around her name.

[imagecaption] March participants draw attention to systemic bias in the police force and the cases of missing and murdered trans people, Trans March, 2018. Photo: Samuel Engelking. [/imagecaption]

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‘I remember her sense of style, her laugh. She was a great singer. She was very approachable. She was just a great soul that died too young…She had a lot [of] ambition, things that she wanted to do in the future and it’s sad that she left so early.’

Monica Forrester, LGBT advocate

Alloura Wells was a 27 year old transgender woman who went missing from downtown Toronto in mid 2017. As a Black, Indigenous trans-woman, who was experiencing homelessness at the time of her death, and who had a history of criminalisation and addiction, she occupied a lethal intersection. When her father reported her disappearance he was told that because of her itinerant history, she wasn’t a high priority. In December 2017 her body was found in Rosedale Ravine Lands Park. It remains unclear how she died.


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This research was primarily supported under the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme from 2016-2020.

Partial funding was received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s Partnership Development Grants scheme in 2016-2017.

The views expressed herein are those of the named authors and are not necessarily those of the funders.

All content © artists and deathscapes.org, 2017.

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