BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Over two years ago, Blaque/OUT Magazine brought you the story of Deundray Cottrell who had disappeared on the 4th of July during a family barbecue in Alabama where he was visiting with his partner, Julian Taylor Morris. Cottrell, a 31yr old Ph.D student was seen running through back yards on a ring camera before his body was discovered in a shed several blocks from where he was last seen. Julian initially spoke with authorities, gave conflicting stories, eventually refused to keep communicating with authorities and disappeared after being named a person of interest. A manhunt for Taylor-Morris began with reported sightings of him making headlines for months. The case and Morris’ trail eventually went cold.

WVTM 13 in Birmingham reports, Julian Taylor Morris, 33, of Jonesboro, Georgia, was taken into custody Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, by U.S. Marshals in Miami, Florida, Birmingham police said.

“Before you see transgender, see someone’s baby.

My name was Sophie.

On September 11, 2026, I was gunned down near 24th & Calvert Streets in Baltimore. A life that should have had decades left was suddenly over.

Now, instead of planning my future, my loved ones are planning my funeral.

Imagine being the mother who once picked out her baby’s first outfit—and now has to choose what her child will wear for the last time.

That pain has no gender.

A mother’s tears don’t fall differently because her child was transgender. A family doesn’t hurt less because their loved one was different.

When you bury your child, you bury a piece of yourself.

Transgender people know what it feels like to be stared at, rejected, threatened, left behind, or afraid simply for existing.

But we still dream.

We still love.

We still belong to somebody.

Sophie deserved another birthday. Another laugh. Another chance to fall in love. She deserved to grow old.

Please help us give Sophie the homegoing she deserves. Donate if you can. If you can’t, share her name until the nation hears it.

SOPHIE WAS SOMEBODY’S CHILD.

SOPHIE WAS LOVED.

SOPHIE DESERVED TO LIVE.

AND SOPHIE SHOULD STILL BE HERE.”

On the morning of Monday, August 24, I woke up, as I do most mornings, with my darling daughter, the Countess of Chaos, securely sleeping in her favorite place—my personal dirty pillows, a.k.a. my tits. Since I’m on vacation, I haven’t been as tapped into the community, as I’m trying to learn how to separate in order to prioritize self-care while sustaining this work. I refuse to follow in the same habits as our Transtors, who literally worked themselves to death.

I received some staggering news that left many New York activists, community partners, and siblings of the late Kiara St. James gobsmacked. What exactly had my flabbers so ghasted? 

Ok so BOOM! William Colon is a cisgender man working at NYTAG which just happens to be a FUBU (For Us By Us) organization.  He was the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), AS 👏🏼 A 👏🏽 CIS 👏🏾 MAN 👏🏿 and now is the CEO (chief executive officer) I’m guessing your values are aligned; but wait, how were they align? If you believe in the mission statement of this org you should’ve never taken either one of those roles! For those who don’t know, NYTAG was founded by Kiara St. James and Tanya Walker, with the help of other Black and Brown trans women, because let’s be serious: historically we’re the ones who get things done when it comes to community and public engagement. Taken from the NYTAG website, their mission statement reads: “To create pathways for TGNCNBI New Yorkers to build leadership, drive advocacy, and grow community rooted in collective care and power.” Their vision statement states: “A New York where every TGNCNBI person can lead, thrive, and shape the world they live in.” This is why many of us who knew, worked beside, and loved Kiara are perplexed. Just because you are qualified to do this work doesn’t mean you should be doing it. It’s giving Great gowns, beautiful gowns, not the right gown for this occasion!

With little to no warning, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles stopped allowing people to change the gender markers on their driver’s licenses and state IDs to reflect their correct gender identity. Residents will now be required to have the markers on their IDs match a birth certificate or passport. Previously, state residents could change the gender marker on their license or ID by submitting form 2369 to the BMV. That process has been immediately stopped leaving Trans residents stunned and stuck. Ohio joins a growing list of states where changes to gender markers on IDs are either banned or much more difficult to make. People seeking to change their gender marker on an Ohio license or ID are reportedly required to first update the marker on their birth certificate. The change is also reported to be required by language in the state budget passed in June.

This situation surrounding Sidney Starr is a fucking scandal. I’m not here to dissect the limited information or criticize her; I’m certain the bigots will take that route, and that really doesn't help us. I’m a tad bit Confucius about how someone can claim the allegations are false while admitting to giving Sloppy Toppy, but I’m no lawyer and that’s above my pay grade. What I want to focus on is how this incident will impact nearly every black trans woman/ femmes life in America. I read on TMZ that she requested this not reflect the entire trans community, and for that, I thank her. But the shade is that the damage may already be done, ma. If these allegations are true, she has fucked us with a sandpaper condom and no lube.

Blaque/OUT Magazine has always taken on the grim but incredibly important task of reporting on the murders of Trans people. Reporting on these stories and recording the names and faces of the lost became even more Important when Federal and State agencies began wiping the public databases that held these statistics and national organizations stopped reporting them. Anytime you hear one of these stories from a reputable and respectful source they will say “at least.” At least 4, at least 10 because so often Trans people are Identified by only their biological sex by law enforcement who are then misgendered by media and identified publicly by only their legal name which Is often a “deadname” and not reflective of their gender Identity or person they were In life. These correct Identifications matter to record our history, respect people’s Identity In death and accurately depict who a person was. In addition, it often changes the victimology and thus the offender profile. It matters.

In sad news today, WNBA star Brittney Griner has filed for divorce from wife Cherelle Griner after eight years of marriage. Griner filed Thursday in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia. The petition states that the couple have been been separated since July 24, 2026, and that the marriage "is irretrievably broken" with "no hope of reconciliation." The couple share a two year old son, Bash, that the petition asks the couple be awarded joint physical custody of.

On Tuesday, June 30, 2026, Hawley was extradited to the custody of the MPD Fugitive Unit and transported to the Homicide Branch where he was formally charged, pursuant to a DC Superior Court arrest warrant, with First Degree Murder per the Metropolitan Police Department website.

When Marsha P. Johnson's body was pulled from the Hudson River on July 6, 1992, just days after Sylvia Rivera's birthday, hours after the 4th of July- there were no major headlines. There was no swarm of reporters or fanfare in the streets. Marsha was considered by police as another unhoused, mentally ill, sex worker who lost her life to the streets. They declared her death a suicide and closed the case away in a drawer. Of course community didn't forget her, she was the Queen of Christopher Street. Her activism for Trans women, throw away youth, HIV/AIDs, her role in the Stonewall Riots, her work with Sylvia that created STAR and gave people homes and saved countless lives. Her performances, modeling for Warhol and the tattered couture she wore famously was legend. Is Legend. Her death brought Sylvia Rivera back to the work and her death haunted her every day there after.

What happens when hip-hop tells Trans stories? When Kendrick Lamar released "Auntie Diaries," the public conversation quickly expanded beyond the music itself. Listeners debated his use of slurs like faggot, his decision to deadname his family members. We ask whether Kendrick’s personal journey to acceptance justified the harm some Transgender listeners felt the song reproduced in its high-stakes time. I was not one of those Trans people. I thought the song was a beautiful, honest reflection of Kendrick’s journey to understanding the Trans experience. I made a full YouTube review breaking it down. In my lifetime, mentions of Transgender people in mainstream hip-hop have been relatively rare. When they did appear, they often went back to those age-old Transphobic tropes, shock value, and anxieties surrounding gender identity. Against that backdrop, hearing Kendrick Lamar thoughtfully examine his relationship to Transgender people on "Auntie Diaries" felt genuinely refreshing. Rather than positioning himself as someone with all the answers, he made himself part of the story, exposing his own ignorance, inherited prejudices, and capacity for growth. We don’t have to agree with all the artistic choices he made, but I respected his willingness to place himself under scrutiny instead of simply scrutinizing Transgender people. That was something I believed deserved serious consideration—not blind praise or immediate dismissal, but deep thought and rigorous critique. That's exactly what I want us all to do.

Today in Canandaigua, New York, Precious Arzuaga, 40, was walked into a Ontario County Courthouse where she pled guilty to all charges in the murder and torture of Sam Nordquist, a 24 year old Trans masculine man who had traveled from Minnesota to Central New York to meet her in late 2024.

June is Pride Month, a time when our corporate overlords engage in performative “allyship,” distracting tweaking Twinks and newly blossomed gays with the latest rainbow paraphernalia. As much as I despise the capitalist agenda that hijacks this month, it's equally troubling to see the L, G, and B communities erase the fact that there would be no Pride without the black and brown trans women—often sex workers—who fought for our rights, even when the very community they supported later turned its back on them. This is reminiscent of organizations like THEM Magazine and Pink News.

While the nation celebrates Pride, party goers are recovering from the weekend and organizers are preparing for the upcoming weekend’s festivities- a bruised and battered Trans community is waking up to learn yet another Black Trans woman has lost her life to violence all too soon. News WKRG5 in Alabama reported early this morning about a shooting that happened around 6:35 a.m. inside an apartment unit at 5725 Old Pascagoula Road in Mobile. The story was updated to reflect by 10AM that the victim had passed and was being investigated as a homicide. Although local news stations have not yet identified the victim by name, Blaque/OUT Magazine was unfortunately able to confirm through Alabama advocates and a friend of the victim that she was being misgendered in reports and is in fact, La’Daijah Walters of Mobile.

Despite the disproportionate number of Trans people, specifically Black Trans women, that are murdered in the United States every year, justice is few and far between. When cis Black and Indigenous women, children and Two-Spirit go missing they barely get media attention. When Black Trans women are murdered and discarded, they are typically misgendered by police and media, their cases are barely investigated and cases go cold. There is no equity in life or justice in death. Tiny spots of lights sometime appear among a blanket of darkness when the precious life of a victim is honored by catching a killer.

It has been less than 3wks since Blaque/OUT reported the death of Persia Conway in Houston, Texas. Today we bring you another devastating loss of Marlow Trottie (as reported by KALB5 Louisiana) in Alexandria, Louisiana.

Blaque/OUT’s Victoria Von Blaque caught up with Qween Jean at the NYC Mayor’s Office Pride Party this week as she celebrated both Pride and her historic Tony win for musical costuming design on Broadway’s “Cats: The Jellicle Ball.” Qween Jean becomes the first openly transgender person to win a Tony.

Dmitriy Popov, 20, was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime on Monday in the death of dancer O’Shae Sibley, who was killed in 2023 at a Brooklyn gas station when Popov and friends shouted racist and homophobic slurs to Sibley’s group while they vogued to a Beyoncé song.

One of the seven defendants awaiting trial for the 2025 torture and murder of Sam Nordquist in upstate/central New York reached a guilty plea today with the Ontario County Court. The youngest defendant at just 19 years of age has been the only one of the seven to accept responsibility or express remorse per Ontario County District Attorney Jason MacBride.

A woman and her little brother were walking in Southwest Houston and discovered the body of a Trans woman, naked and deceased by the Bray’s Bayou River on Memorial Day. Police reported the victim as being Trans “by their outward appearance.” The cause of death and official identity of the victim have not been released by authorities but Los Angelos advocates and social media posts have indicated that she may be a woman named Persia that had recently relocated from LA to the Houston area.

Blaque/OUT Magazine recently reported the alarming statistic that 7 individuals of the Trans experience had lost their lives to violence in the US in the last 45 days. Terrifyingly, we were mistaken, it was 8. Our investigative team just learned that Lanessa Rodriguez was murdered in a robbery attempt of her Gold and Silver Pawn shop in Fort Pierce, Florida in April.