The night before, Aubrey Mariko cited the recent transgender killings around the world and asked in a Facebook update if she was going to be next.

“Let’s face it,” Mariko wrote on Feb. 24, “it’s hard for Trans women, esp. twoc (trans women of color).”

According to the Marin County Sheriff’s department, Mariko was witnessed jumping off the bridge Feb. 24. Her body was located in the water around 6:12 p.m. A forensic examination determined she died of multiple impact injuries.

Mariko’s death, unreported in the media, draws attention to the plight of transgender women of color and how they are largely invisible.

Mariko wasn’t always so hopeless. In a description about herself she wrote, “loving and sharing communities, especially locally, is my passion.”

She was active in several organizations and movements. In December 2014 she was awarded a yearlong fellowship with Youth Impact Hub Oakland. Mariko proposed a project called “Stop Stigma Radical Rally” to promote awareness of mental health struggles.

“Aubrey was always raising awareness on trans issues, talking about how trans folks of color were so excluded from the LGBTQ (white gay) community and the trans white community itself,” said Jorge Hernandez, a friend of hers.

“What hurts the most is this amazing person who had so much to offer feeling like they didn’t have any options left,” said Lisa Evans who knew Mariko through Youth UpRising in Oakland. “If that’s the way someone who was as resourceful and knowledgeable about the nonprofit community and its resources feels, what does that say about the rest, you know?”

In many ways, Mariko seemed like she had survived the stigma and discrimination against transgender women. She would take the AC Transit 57 bus dressed in colorful clothing, her hair colored a bright blue.

Apparently, though, she hadn’t escaped the demons of her past. Hernandez said Aubrey was in the foster care system for a large part of her life. She dealt with sexual molestations and rape, he said.

“I thought I could handle being molested as a child, being spit on, being raped. I’m sorry. But I have to do this,” she posted on her Facebook page, just minutes before she jumped to her death.

Transmisogyny and transphobia fall heaviest on transgender women of color, according to a 2012 report from The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. It found a three-year trend in which transgender women, LGBTQ and HIV-affected people of color experienced a greater risk of homicide than LGBTQ and HIV-affected whites.

The report stated that transgender people of color victimized by violence were two and a half times more likely to experience police violence and two times more likely to experience discrimination as compared to white cisgender (gender identity matches sex assigned at birth) survivors and victims.

The Transgender Law Center found that transgender women of color in detention centers around the country continuously suffer sexual abuse and are often forced to choose between being in solitary confinement or being raped.

Transgender women make up only one out of 500 detainees in immigration detention facilities, yet they are the victims in one out of every five substantiated cases of sexual assault.

Violence against transgender white women is not any less appalling than violence against trans women of color, however when the media fail to pay attention to trans issues until they directly affect white people, it ignores the realities for transgender women of color.

Mariko’s death is a powerful example.

It was not reported in the local news media outlets or her hometown paper. According to the mainstream media, it’s almost as if she never existed.

“A transwoman is slain every 29 hours, yet we make up less than one percent of the world’s population. Transgendercide is taking place,” reads an article on the planettransgender.com website. “Certain segments of society have declared war on us and we are dying at a rate that endangers the very existence of our community.”

Oakland Voices correspondent Erick Chavarria is a native of Mexico. He has been navigating “Gringolandia” ever since he moved to the U.S. at the age of 5. He is very compassionate toward social issues and has been active in grassroots movements, particularly those aimed at Immigrant rights and Latino issues.