A 35-year-old Latina transgender woman was shot repeatedly in an apparent hate crime late Friday in northwest Dallas, police say.

The woman was wounded about 11 p.m. Friday in the 11000 block of Dennis Road, north of Royal Lane, as a man pulled alongside the victim and yelled "a number of slurs about her gender identity," police said. The man shot her multiple times in the chest and arm.

Officers, who said they are investigating the attack as a hate crime, were unable to speak with the woman until Sunday because of her wounds.

Texas hate crime law covers sexual orientation but not gender identity, meaning someone motivated by anti-gay malice could receive an upped criminal charge, but someone who commits an act of anti-trans violence cannot.

Repeated efforts to add transgender Texans to the state hate crimes law have failed. Federal hate crimes law includes both sexual orientation and gender identity but can only used here if federal law enforcement authorizes its application.

Police did not have a detailed description of the gunman but released images Sunday night of a truck they suspect was involved in the incident: a red four-door, late-model Chevrolet pickup with large aftermarket rims.

On Monday afternoon, police released surveillance footage of the truck.

Police described the shooter's pickup as a red four-door Chevrolet with large rims. (Dallas Police Department)

Friday's attack follows the murders of two Dallas transgender women this year. It's a troubling pattern gripping Texas and the nation, transgender advocates said Monday.

Transgender women face high levels of verbal, physical and sexual violence — often more so than non-transgender people. And trans women of color are disproportionately attacked, research has found.

"It's a nationwide problem — period," said Monica Roberts, a leader in the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition. Roberts also tracks the murders of transgender women across the country. So far this year, she's tracked 19 — three of which have been in Texas.

"The combination of guns, right-wing rhetoric and anti-trans rhetoric has created the conditions for trans women in Texas to be attacked," she said. "It sends a message that it's open season on us."

Gillian Branstetter, spokeswoman for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said policymakers can curb the violence against trans women by focusing on large inequity issues and expanding access to affordable health care, housing and jobs for trans women.

"It's important that we support the ability of every transgender person — and black trans women especially — to inoculate themselves from violence in many ways that we take for granted. We have to support these women before they become hashtags."

Ana Andrea Molina, founder of Organización Latina de Trans en Texas, which helps Latina trans women, said she has made contact with the victim. Molina said the victim is recovering but does not want to speak publicly because of safety concerns since her attacker is still at-large.

Molina said the Houston-based group will meet in Dallas on Sept. 30 to talk about safety concerns in the transgender community.

“We are not going to let her go through this alone,” Molina said in Spanish. “These are hate crimes that the transgender and Latinx and immigrant community can’t allow to keep happening.”

Molina said she appreciates Dallas police for working on community relations within the transgender community. But she said there’s only so much police can do when there are laws that don’t allow transgender people equal rights.

“The police follow laws. They don’t make them," she said. "The system of oppression is still there.”

The string of violence against transgender women is likely to be the center of discussion at an upcoming police town hall on Sept. 25 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center in South Dallas. The community meeting was already scheduled earlier this year, long before the attack happened.

In May, more than 100 people attended the department's LGBTQ community outreach event at the Resource Center, which offers social and health services to transgender people. The murder of 22-year-old Muhlaysia Booker that month brought a new urgency to longstanding concerns for transgender people in Dallas. Attention to her murder was especially intense because it followed intense publicity over a video of her being punched and stomped April 12 in east Oak Cliff.

In June, the body of another black transgender woman, Chynal Lindsey, 26, was found in White Rock Lake. Suspects are in custody in both cases.

Anyone with information about the latest case may call Detective Michael Yeric at 214-283-4803.

People who wish to remain anonymous may call Crime Stoppers at 214-373-8477. Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information that leads to an arrest and indictment in the case.

Staff writer Lauren McGaughy contributed to this report.