An Alabama woman has become the first known transgender person killed this year in the United States.

Dana Martin, 31, identified by advocacy groups as a black transgender woman, was found shot to death in a vehicle in Montgomery, Ala., on Sunday.

Ms. Martin, who lived in Hope Hull, Ala., about nine miles southwest of Montgomery, was well-known in the transgender community of Birmingham and Montgomery, said Meta Ellis, the director of Montgomery Pride United, an L.G.B.T. advocacy organization in Alabama.

“Our community is devastated because the murders going on — especially of trans people of color — are just happening more and more often and very little is being done about it,” she said. “And here in Alabama we don’t have laws that support hate crimes against people of other genders.”