USA TODAY

When Lala Zannell, a black queer transgender woman, takes the subway in New York City, she braces herself for harassment and heckling. She knows she could be killed for who she is, just as 21 other transgender Americans have been killed so far this year.

“It never gets any easier,” said Zannell, a prominent activist for transgender rights, of the recent violence against transgender women. “It doesn’t matter if I don’t personally know them at all. It affects me as if I personally knew them because I know that any given moment I know that could me, and that’s my reality.”

For the past six years, Zannell has traveled around the country discussing ways to stop acts of hate because she wants LGBTQ people to be able to live their lives safely. As the lead organizer of the New York City Anti-Violence Project, an anti-LGBTQ violence organization, the 40-year-old speaks on issues from police violence against transgender people to the community's access to jobs. She organizes local forums on LGBTQ needs and develops policy recommendations for transgender housing. She has worked alongside celebrities and testified before Congress and at the White House about the traumas transgender people face.

Zannell said she does not want people to remember the victims of violence against trans women as just another hashtag or statistic.

“Any time I get the chance to, I try to humanize the lives of trans women ... and get people speaking their names," Zannell said.

For the New York City Anti-Violence Project's 24-hour crisis intervention hotline, she trains volunteers and helps record reports of violence against LGBTQ and HIV-affected people. The team provides safety planning and counseling, as well as legal resources in local incidents.

Instead of sending alerts about national slayings of transgender women, they now put together memorandums to uplift their stories.

To speak up against anti-transgender violence, Zannell said parents should prepare their minds for their children to come out to them, educators should teach diversity and officers should respect transgender people. People should protect their transgender neighbors, and if they don’t have a transgender friend, develop one.

Before she began her job with the New York City Anti-Violence Project, Zannell wasn't as open about being trans, and she wasn't an activist.

“That is what makes us human and a part of this earth,” Zannell said of her fight against hate, “when we’re making sure we’re taking care of the earth, making sure we’re taking care of our neighbors, making sure we’re taking care of each other and having those uncomfortable conversations."