On May 3, 2020, a 28-year-old black transgender woman named Nina Pop was found dead with multiple stab wounds after being stabbed with a knife inside her apartment on South New Madrid Street in

Sikeston, Missouri Sikeston is a city located both in southern Scott County and northern New Madrid County, in the state of Missouri, United States. It is situated just north of the "Missouri Bootheel", although many locals consider Sikeston a part of it. By way o ...

Nina Pop

Pop was a black transgender woman. She lived 145 miles south of

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

in Sikeston, Missouri, a small town of 16,000 people.

Aftermath

On May 15, 2020 in

Dexter, Missouri Dexter is a city in Stoddard County, Missouri, United States, founded in 1873. The population was 7,864 at the 2010 census. History Dexter was platted in 1873. Mr. Dex, an early settler, gave the community the name of his horse, Dexter. Dexter ...

, Joseph B. Cannon from

Poplar Bluff, Missouri Poplar Bluff is a medium city in Butler County in Southeast Missouri, United States. It is the county seat of Butler County and is known as "The Gateway to the Ozarks" among other names. The population was 16,225 at the 2020 census. The Poplar B ...

, was accused of Pop's murder and arrested for second-degree murder and armed criminal action. He pleaded not guilty, requested a

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...

, and awaits trial. 11 crime labs, anti-violence organizations, and police departments contributed to the investigation. Sikeston Department of Public Safety and a local TV network initially misgendered Pop during their investigation and reporting, respectively. The

Human Rights Campaign The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGB ...

stated that her death is at least the 10th violent death of an American

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

person or

gender non-conforming Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-bina ...

person in 2020.

Community response

The Okra Project The Okra Project is an American mutual aid collective that provides support to black trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people. The organization is based in New York City. As of January 2023, Gabrielle Inès Souza serves as the Executiv ...

, a grassroots organization initially focused on addressing food insecurity in the black transgender community, dedicated $15,000 to form the Nina Pop Mental Health Recovery Fund and the

Tony McDade On May 27, 2020, after 11 a.m., a 38-year-old African-American transgender man, Tony McDade, was fatally shot in the Leon Arms apartment complex by an officer of the Tallahassee Police Department, following the fatal stabbing of Malik Jackson o ...

Mental Health Recovery Fund in to raise money for free one-time mental health therapy sessions for black transgender individuals. On June 2, 2020 thousands of people came together for a vigil and protest at the

Stonewall Inn The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall, is a gay bar and recreational tavern in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which is widely considered to be the s ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to honor the lives of Nina Pop and Tony McDade and protest police violence and

transphobic violence Violence against transgender people includes emotional, physical, sexual, or verbal violence. The term has also been applied to hate speech directed at transgender people and at depictions of transgender people in the media that reinforce negativ ...

against the black transgender community.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pop, Nina 2020 controversies in the United States Black Lives Matter Violence against trans women Deaths by person in Missouri LGBT African Americans LGBT people from Missouri 2020 deaths Deaths by stabbing in Missouri May 2020 crimes in the United States May 2020 events in the United States 2020 in Missouri Violence against LGBT people in the United States 21st-century American LGBT people History of women in Missouri