At nighttime hours earlier than daybreak on June 29, Cayla Calhoun lay unconscious and bleeding close to the Nationwide Mall, her skirt torn and soaked in blood, her physique battered nearly past recognition. She had come to Washington, D.C., in January, hoping for security. As a substitute, three males on scooters surrounded her, shouted anti-trans slurs, and beat her, leaving her for useless.
“I used to be dwelling in Alabama, and it was changing into unsafe as a transgender individual,” Calhoun, 43, stated. “So I moved to D.C. as a result of I believed it will be safer. Oh, no.”
She grinned. “Truthfully, it crossed my thoughts possibly I would like to achieve out to Alanis Morissette in case she ever needs to do one other model of ‘Ironic.’”
It had begun as an unusual Saturday night time. Calhoun, a sommelier and bartender at Annabelle restaurant, completed a late shift, become a skirt and rainbow pin, and left her work garments behind. Round 12:45 a.m., she stepped into Golden Age, a bar a few block from Annabelle, for a fast beer.
Then she climbed onto her Onewheel electrical board and set off via Georgetown, heading alongside Rock Creek Parkway. She remembers navigating a detour close to Filomena, a widely known Italian restaurant in Georgetown, using previous the Kennedy Middle, and rising from a tunnel the place the Washington Monument glowed within the humid summer time darkness.
Then, as she moved nearer towards the Nationwide Mall from the Lincoln Memorial, three males on scooters appeared out of the shadows. “They started verbally assaulting me,” Calhoun recalled. “They referred to as me slurs. You realize, as queer folks, we’ve all handled that.”
She tried to trip away. However the males adopted. “By some means they pushed me off my Onewheel,” she stated. “I keep in mind falling right into a tree and scraping up my knee and my elbow. However I gathered my Onewheel and tried to get away.”
Cayla Calhoun using her Onewheel in DC
Cayla Calhoun using her Onewheel in Washington, DCCourtesy Cayla Calhoun
It wasn’t sufficient.
“I don’t understand how lengthy it went on,” she stated. “However I do know there was some extent the place I used to be pushed off once more. I keep in mind pondering in my head, ‘I’ve to get away. This isn’t any person making enjoyable of me anymore. I’ve to get away.” That was the very last thing she remembered.
In accordance with a Metropolitan Police Division incident report obtained by The Advocate, Calhoun was found by emergency medical responders on the curb close to nineteenth Avenue and Structure Avenue NW. Initially confused, she instructed EMTs she had fallen off her skateboard a number of instances that day, the report states. She later reported to police that she remembered being attacked by three males about three-quarters of a mile from the place EMTs discovered her.
The police report states that the attackers used hate- and bias-related slurs, main Calhoun to imagine she was focused for her gender identification. The doc notes that her accidents had been totally on the correct aspect of her physique.
Emergency crews discovered her round 6 a.m. and rushed her to George Washington College Hospital.
Her accidents had been devastating: a concussion, a number of damaged ribs, a fractured vertebra, a shattered elbow, seven fractures round her eye socket, a damaged palate, and a fractured femur. Sixty p.c of her physique was bruised, a few of it in fingerprint-shaped marks round her neck, proof, she stated, that she’d doubtless been strangled.
Cayla Calhoun after being assaulted
Cayla Calhoun after being assaultedCourtesy Cayla Calhoun
At the same time as a toddler, Calhoun had recognized who she was.
Rising up in upstate New York, the daughter of a minister, she remembers her household’s weekly grocery journeys into city. When she was 4 or 5, she started pretending to be sick so she may keep house alone.
“I’d go to my sister’s room and look via her clothes,” she stated. “I’d choose the cutest one, get some stockings, put them on, discover my sister’s make-up, and placed on some lipstick and eye shadow. I’m certain it seemed ridiculous as a five-year-old. However I felt extra like me in these moments than I ever felt at some other time.”
That sense of self by no means left her. However being herself almost price her her life.
When Calhoun awakened within the hospital, she stated her skirt was shredded and bloody. A lot of her belongings had been thrown away by hospital workers who, she suspects, mistook her for a homeless individual.
“By the point police realized who I used to be, a number of that preliminary proof was gone,” she stated.
Detectives visited her hospital mattress 4 days later. “They stated they had been there on orders from the District 1 commander,” she stated. “I used to be nonetheless foggy. I can’t keep in mind each element.” She says she hasn’t heard from the police since.
An MPD spokesperson instructed The Advocate that the case is being investigated “as doubtlessly being motivated by hate or bias.”
Pals and strangers have rallied round Calhoun. Ellen Vaughn, a pal of Calhoun’s roommate, launched a GoFundMe fundraiser that has raised greater than $19,000 as of Monday afternoon.
“Although her attackers tried to crush her physique, they might not crush her spirit,” Vaughn wrote.
Calhoun’s attain has prolonged properly past the capital. Nick Craig, of Brix Cheese Store & Wine Bar in Iowa Metropolis, Iowa, posted on-line concerning the assault, describing Calhoun as a part of a tight-knit wine and hospitality neighborhood.
“Cayla is a part of my neighborhood, which, if you happen to’re studying this, means she is a part of yours,” Craig wrote. “Whereas we’ve by no means met in individual, we’re colleagues linked via the great world of wine and hospitality. I’ve had the privilege of witnessing her professionalism, ardour, humor and energy for a few years as a member of a particular social media group for folks like her and me — common people who love wine a lot we make it a part of who we’re and use it to construct the neighborhood round us.”
Calhoun stated the assault has introduced one surprising present: her mother and father lastly acknowledged her identification.
“Final week was the primary time in my life that my mother and father referred to me as Cayla or used my pronouns appropriately,” she stated. “It’s due to this.”
Bodily, Calhoun faces a protracted restoration.
“Nice motor expertise are horrible,” she stated. “I’m like a two-year-old making an attempt to make use of a extremely small iPhone. Grabbing issues, selecting issues up, making an attempt to drink or eat — it’s very arduous proper now.”
Emotionally, she hovers between religious perception and deep concern.
“A part of me, spiritually, I’m awake. I’m as awake as I’ve ever been. However emotionally, I don’t know what it seems to be like,” she stated. “As a sommelier, a server, a bartender, I can depend on two arms what number of instances per week I hear right-wing folks at my desk speaking about trans folks. I don’t understand how that’s going to work sooner or later.”
And he or she firmly believes the present political local weather is fueling assaults like hers.
“Completely,” she stated. “The narrative that has been written by the Republicans and by folks like Donald Trump, the speaking factors, the sleight-of-hand disinformation, utilizing blanket phrases to check with a really particular class of individuals, it’s all deliberate.”
Cayla Calhoun
Cayla CalhounCourtesy Cayla Calhoun
Whereas recovering, Calhoun is engaged on a ebook about hospitality, a mix of non-public memoir and the teachings of Ram Dass and Thomas Merton. Dass was a religious instructor recognized for mixing Jap philosophy with Western psychology, whereas Merton was a Trappist monk and prolific author whose works explored contemplation, social justice, and interfaith dialogue.
“One factor that’s been actually prevalent in my head not too long ago is the dichotomy between concern and love,” she stated. “Even at work, the way you deal with your assistant who doesn’t converse English. Persons are imply as a result of they’re afraid. Then they get dangerous assist, then they’re mad. It’s an countless cycle.”
She believes the identical concern fuels anti-trans violence.
“I’ve had buddies inform me, ‘In the event you discover them, let me know, I’ll kill them.’ I perceive that perspective, however that’s dwelling out of concern,” she stated. “Particularly as a trans individual, I’d be so removed from who I’m if I’d spent my life dwelling out of concern. After we reside out of affection, it’s totally different. Unfamiliar issues aren’t harmful anymore.”
Nonetheless, she accepts actuality.
“This may very well be a tragedy, and it’s a tragedy. Will probably be eight weeks earlier than I’m capable of work once more. It’s terrifying,” Calhoun stated. “However I hope it results in folks studying to be themselves, and different folks studying to simply accept folks for being themselves. That makes the load just a bit lighter.”
Calhoun retains pondering of one other trans lady. One week after her assault, nearly to the hour, 28-year-old Dream Johnson was shot and killed in Northeast D.C.
“Dream was useless per week to the day, 20 minutes distinction in time,” Calhoun stated. “She’s useless, and I’m not. It hurts.”
Johnson’s homicide stays beneath investigation. Police are providing a $25,000 reward for info.
In accordance with MPD information, there had been 9 reported hate crimes motivated by bias in opposition to gender identification or expression earlier than July 1, a lower from 15 throughout the identical interval final yr. However advocates warn many assaults go unreported.
The Advocate has contacted D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s workplace for remark. D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Security and Justice Lindsey Appiah stated in a press release, “There may be nothing extra essential than our continued efforts to drive down crime and make our metropolis safer for all of our residents and guests. Whereas gender identification/expression bias-related crimes are down within the District in comparison with 2024, we all know there may be nonetheless work to be carried out as long as anybody is victimized in our metropolis.” She confirmed that the Metropolitan Police Division is investigating the incident involving Calhoun.
“It’s not an accident that we’re seeing an increase in violence in opposition to transgender people. It’s a part of a right-wing plan,” Calhoun stated. “They’re not doing something to assist the American folks, however the issues that assist them pressure their agenda, they’re actually adept at.”
Calhoun, who started publicly presenting as female in 2015 and got here out as transgender in early 2023, refuses to cover.
“I hope via this case that some folks see humanity,” she stated. “And if all of it will get some folks to see, then it’s a little bit higher.”
Editor’s notice: This text has been up to date to incorporate feedback from D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Security and Justice Lindsey Appiah.
This text initially appeared on Advocate: Transgender lady who escaped Alabama for her security overwhelmed & left for useless close to Nationwide Mall in D.C.
