2016 was a record year for violence against transgender people. According to the Advocate, 26 transgender people had been murdered by November, making it the deadliest year on record, with a month still left to go. In 2017, the violence continues.

Mississippi News Now reports Mesha Caldwell, a transgender woman from Mississippi, is the first transgender person to be murdered in 2017. Mesha was found dead on Wednesday near Canton, Mississippi, and police are reportedly investigating her death as a homicide.

As Mic's latest project, Unerased: Counting Transgender Lives, notes, the murder rate for transgender people is much higher than for the general population. For black transgender woman, the prevalence of violence is even more common. If everyone in the country were as at risk for life-ending violence as black transgender women, Mic reports the country's murder rate would have jumped from 15,696 in 2015 to a whopping 120,087.

Mesha was a black transgender woman.

The tragedy gets worse. Mic reports news outlets initially identified Mesha as a man, something that commonly happens when transgender people are killed. It's often a tactic used to silence the person's true identity, and other times it's done by mistake. Mississippi News Now reports Madison County Coroner Alex Breeland identified the body as a man and used Mesha Caldwell's dead name.

"Many trans people fear that in death their full identities will be erased, subtracted from, or diminished,"Alex Schmider, a senior strategist for transgender media at GLAAD, previously told Teen Vogue. "We've seen this happen."

"Disregarding a person’s gender identity and misgendering them in any context adds insult to injury, especially when there is loss of life, compounding the tragedy by invalidating the authentic identity of the person who died," Alex continued.

The New York City Anti-Violence Project told Mic this is the first transgender person killed in the new year that they are aware of, and it sets a sad and scary tone for a year that many LGBTQ people were already afraid for.

"This is the first homicide of a transgender person that NCAVP has responded to in 2017, during a time of heightened fear and increased violence against LGBTQ communities," Emily Waters, senior manager of national research and policy at the organization, said in a statement. "As we continue to hear more reports of violence, we must remind ourselves that this violence is not normal and fight harder than ever to keep transgender people safe."

Violence is never normal, but for the transgender community, it is a daily concern. As we mourn Mesha's death, let's also recognize the work still ahead for transgender equality. The hate that is so often behind murders like Mesha's has to end.

Related: Why Incorrectly Identifying Transgender People Who Have Died Is a Lack of Respect