The one thing these victimized people share is an unfinished life: love foreclosed, potential ripped away, relationships brutally terminated, and future contributions stolen away from us by outrageous, irrational hatred. The stories of these unfinished lives must not remain untold. Human dignity and decency demand they be told and remembered. To date, claiming the victims of anti-gay hate crime violence has happened only sporadically, and in fragmentary, short-lived ways. The LGBT community deserves to hear these stories, so that they may remember their own and honor them. How we, the living survivors of violence, remember and honor our dead largely determines the strength and character of our humanity. Unless stories like these are told, regardless of the pain, the killers of the dream of freedom from fear will diminish our community. Those we remember and claim as our own:

Andrew Anthos ( 1929– 2007). 72-years-old, bludgeoned to death with a pipe near a bus stop in Detroit, Michigan, after affirming to his assailant that he was gay.

Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (1985 – 2002). A male-to-female transgender woman from Hayward, California, murdered with a skillet and a can of tomatoes, and buried in a shallow grave.

Gregory Beauchamp (1981-2002), 21, shot to death from a car window in Cincinnati, OH by a man shouting anti-gay epithets. Beauchamp was on his way to a New Year’s Eve party.

Tiffany Berry (1985-2006). 21-year-old African American transwoman, murdered in Memphis, TN, by a man who said he didn’t like the way she touched him.

Paul Broussard (1964 – 1991). 27-years-old, gay banker beaten to death by a gang of ten teenage boys as he left a gay nightclub in the Montrose area of Houston, Texas.

Bill Clayton (1978 – 1995). A seventeen-year-old bisexual man in Olympia, Washington, who was assaulted in a gay bashing incident, became an outspoken advocate for hate crimes laws for a short time, and took his own life barely a month after the attack.

Amancio “Dalia” Corrales (1982 – 2005). A Mexican-American cosmetologist and gifted female impersonator who was stabbed to death and thrown in the Colorado River in Yuma, Arizona.

Kenneth Cummings Jr. (1960 – 2007). Southwest Airlines attendant in Metro Houston murdered in his own home by an ex-con who claimed God commissioned him to kill gay men, “like the Prophet Elijah.”

Roberto “Pancho” Duncanson (1987 – 2007). 20-years-old, stabbed to death by an assailant shouting anti-gay epithets, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York.

Michael Scott Goucher (1987-2009). 21-year-old U.S. Army veteran, ambushed by two assailants and stabbed over 45 times on the side of a snowy road in Price Township, Pennsylvania.

Sakia LaTona Gunn (1987 – 2003). An African American lesbian from Newark, New Jersey, stabbed by assailants at a bus stop, while defending her girlfriend.

Richard Hernandez (1970 – 2008). 38-years-old, gruesomely dismembered in his North Dallas, Texas, apartment.

Charles O. “Charlie” Howard (1961 – 1984). A gay student drowned after being thrown by his assailants into the Kenduskeag Stream in downtown Bangor, Maine, while begging that he couldn’t swim.

Duanna Johnson (1965-2008). 43-year-old African American transwoman, famously beaten by police in June 2008, was fatally shot in the head “on her usual corner” in North Memphis, TN just a few months later. Johnson had a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Memphis police at the time.

Sean William Kennedy (1987 – 2007). Fatally assaulted by an 18-year-old in Greenville, South Carolina who received less of a sentence for the murder than if he had killed a dog, according to Greenville municipal statutes.

Lawrence Fobes “Larry” King (1993 – 2008). A fifteen-year-old in Oxnard, California, shot in the head with a small calibre pistol brought to class by a 14-year-old schoolmate who had harassed him for his feminine presentation for months.

Talana Quay Kreeger (1957 – 1990). A lesbian carpenter, manually disemboweled by a long haul trucker in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Fred C. Martinez Jr. (1985 – 2001). A Two-Spirit Navajo lured into a Cortez, Colorado, canyon and killed with a twenty-five pound rock by a man who bragged that he had “bug-smashed a joto.”

Thanh Nguyen (1962 – 1991). A gay Vietnamese American who fled to Dallas, Texas, for freedom, only to be shot and killed in downtown Reverchon Park.

Michael J. Sandy (1977 – 2006). An African American gay man, beaten and forced on foot into freeway traffic in New York City.

Allen R. Schindler Jr. (1969 – 1992). A United States Navy Seaman from the Chicago area, stomped to death by his shipmates while deployed in Japan.

Matthew Wayne Shepard (1976 – 1998). A gay student at the University of Wyoming, pistol-whipped and tied to a buck fence in Laramie.

Adolphus Simmons (1990 – 2008). An 18-year-old, femininely presenting teen, shot to death while carrying out his trash in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Satendar Singh (1980 – 2007). A gay Asian Indian American mobbed to death in Lake Natoma, California, by Russian evangelical Christians shouting homophobic slurs.

Ryan Keith Skipper (1981 – 2007). Stabbed nineteen times and left to bleed out on a lonely dirt road by two assailants in Polk County, Florida.

Emonie Spaulding (1978 – 2003). 25-years-old, African American transgender woman, beaten and shot to death in Washington, DC.

Brandon Teena (1971-1993). A 22-year-old female-to-male transgender person, raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska.

Juana Vega (1965 – 2001). 36-years-old, Chicana Lesbian shot to death in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by her partner’s brother who disapproved of her sexual orientation.

Jeremy Waggoner (1971– 2008). Popular 37-year-old hair stylist, found savagely bludgeoned and stabbed to death in a field near Royal Oak, Michigan.

Arthur “J.R.” Warren (1974-2000). An African American learning disabled gay man from Grant Town, West Virginia, butchered to death and then run over multiple times to mask the murder.

Scotty Joe Weaver (1986 – 2004). Brutally tortured and murdered by roommates while pleading for his life in Bay Minette, Alabama. His murderers urinated on his mutilated body before immolating it in a secluded field in rural Baldwin County.

Nicolas West (1970 – 1993). 23-years-old, shot 20 times and left to die in a clay pit outside Tyler, Texas.

Diane Whipple (1968-2001). A lesbian LaCrosse coach from Moraga, California, mauled to death by her neighbors’ dogs in the infamous San Francisco Dog-Maul case.

Ebony Whitaker (1988 – 2008). 20-year-old male-to-female transgender woman, shot to death by an unknown assailant in Memphis, Tennessee.

Robert Whiteside (1950 – 2006). Noted Fabergé artist, found shot to death in his bed-and-breakfast in Mount Vernon, Texas.

Julianne “Julie” Williams (1971 – 1996). A lesbian gunned down with partner Lollie Winans on the Appalachian Trail near Luray, Virginia.

Simmie Lewis “Beyoncé” Williams Jr. (1990 – 2008). A seventeen-year-old African American transperson, snuffed out clothed in a dress on Sistrunk Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Laura “Lollie” Winans (1970 – 1996). A lesbian gunned down with partner Julie Williams on the Appalachian Trail near Luray, Virginia.

Barry Winchell (1977 – 1999). A United States Army Private First Class from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, fatally bludgeoned with a baseball bat.

Daniel Yakovleff (1988– 2008). Well-regarded hair stylist found brutally stabbed to death in his Boston, Massachusetts, apartment.

Angie Zapata (1988– 2008). 20-year-old Latina transgender woman, murdered with a fire extinguisher by a date who discovered that she was biologically male in Greeley, Colorado.