A public letter, sent to Eastside mayors and councilmembers on 5/15/2026, calling for urgent action, accountability, and support for queer and trans communities in the face of escalating violence, dehumanization, and fear across King County.

Hello Mayor and Councilmembers,

I’m writing this with a pretty shattered heart.

You may already know about Juniper Blessing, the transgender teenager who was fatally stabbed 40 times in a laundromat near UW earlier this week. The suspect later turned himself in to the Bellevue Police Department at the advice of his family, Bellevue residents.

For our queer and trans community, in Seattle, the Eastside, and beyond King County, this did not feel distant. It did not feel like “something happening somewhere else.” It felt horrifyingly close to home, and for many in the community, has brought up their own reflections of their own trans family, friends, neighbors who have been murdered or assaulted. Our trans community has been sharing fears around escalating violence, dehumanization, and public hostility for years.

And this most recent murder came directly on the heels of the newly released United States Counterterrorism Strategy, which explicitly references “radically pro-transgender” groups within the framework of national counterterrorism priorities and discusses using law enforcement tools to identify and neutralize those they deem threats. In my personal conversations throughout the past week, it is only the trans and queer community that are voicing concern around this Counterterrorism Strategy.

We need to be incredibly clear:

Trans people are reading this.
Queer youth are reading this.
Parents of queer youth are reading this.
And people are absolutely terrified.

We are asking our local leaders to understand the enormous emotional and psychological impact of this moment on queer and trans people. We need you to:

• Publicly and immediately acknowledge the harm being caused to queer and trans communities, and take a clear stance against anti-trans violence, dehumanization, and escalating rhetoric. A pride flag and a Pride Proclamation is not allyship.
• Actively spotlight and amplify local initiatives like No Hate in WA State. Publicly endorse, share, attend events, and create intentional and collaborative opportunities to hear directly from your trans constituents and community advocates.
• Dedicate funding, policy support, and legislative action toward trans mental health resources, crisis intervention pathways, and long-term queer community infrastructure on the Eastside, especially for youth, elders, immigrants, disabled community members, and those experiencing isolation.
• Convene, attend, and meaningfully participate in community forums and listening spaces and hear directly from the people being impacted.
• Invest in official city-sponsored education and awareness campaigns, for city staff and for the public, that directly address anti-trans rhetoric, disinformation, and dehumanization before more harm escalates within our communities.
• Fund and support safe, affirming public spaces and recurring programs specifically created for queer and trans youth and adults, so people do not feel that safety only exists behind locked doors or in isolation from public life.
• Pride Across the Bridge is also actively working to bring mental health professionals into our community office hour next Wednesday, May 20th, 4-6pm, to help hold and support our community through this moment. We encourage local leaders to attend to listen directly to community members, and to help share this opportunity for connection and support through your city communication channels and community networks. Information will be shared on our Facebook, Instagram, and Events page.

It has been agonizing watching how few people, especially local city leaders, outside of the trans community seem aware that the Counterterrorism Strategy was even released, let alone discussing the impact it is having on the mental health and sense of safety of already vulnerable communities. Targeted communities have been saying this escalation was coming for years. Patterns of prolonged burnout are literally debilitating our community before our eyes.

In the White House released U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy, it states:

“In addition to cartels and Islamist terror groups, our national CT activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender, and anarchist. We will use all the tools constitutionally available to us to map them at home, identify their membership, map their ties to international organizations like Antifa, and use law enforcement tools to cripple them operationally before they can maim or kill the innocent. (page 7)

Our new U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy is a return to common sense and Peace through Strength. As I said after our first successful counterterrorism mission, just days after I was sworn back in office – if you hurt Americans, or are planning to hurt Americans, “We Will Find You and We Will Kill You.”” (page 3)

ARE YOU READING THAT?

Project 2025 promised us it was coming. Anti-trans initiatives told us it was coming. The constant framing of queer and trans people as dangerous, predatory, unstable, or threats to society told us it was coming, history repeating itself. And now our communities are forced to navigate the reality of seeing anti-trans rhetoric escalating nationally while a trans teenager is murdered here in our own region, in our own county, in our own city. Juniper Blessing was not the first soul we lost to violence and chosen bias.

Attached is a brief timeline documenting several publicly reported acts of anti-trans violence connected to King County between 2021 and 2026, including assaults, murders, attacks connected to transit spaces, and incidents involving anti-LGBTQ slurs. We included names, locations, and images because these are not statistics to our community. These are our neighbors, friends, students, coworkers, and loved ones. When these incidents are viewed together instead of in isolation, the escalation our communities have been warning about for years becomes impossible to ignore.

One of the loudest things I continue hearing from queer and trans community members right now is: “No one who is not directly impacted is talking about this.”

Silence from leadership, organizations, and community voices during moments like this is felt deeply. Inaction has lasting and worsening impacts. Especially when queer and trans communities are being told over and over that we are overreacting while simultaneously watching violence and dehumanization escalate around us.

I want to thank King County Councilmember Sarah Perry, Kirkland Councilmember Amy Falcone, and Redmond Councilmember Jessica Forsythe for taking the pain I shared with them yesterday (March 14th 2026) seriously and publicly recognizing where we are right now and how devastating these actions and narratives are for queer and trans communities and for all of our communities.

Living in Washington does not automatically protect our communities.
Living near Seattle does not automatically protect our communities.
And treating these warnings as hypothetical or distant does not protect our communities.                 Our culture of silence because our beliefs say “how can it get worse” will bury us.

This is not “if this happens here”, it’s a “this is already happening here” How are you showing up differently to stand with us? How are you holding yourselves, your constituents, your partners accountable?

Many in our communities are exhausted from screaming into what feels like a void, while trying to convince people that our fear is rational. Queer community spaces on the Eastside have not existed until Pride Across the Bridge came into being. While we are close to Seattle, we are still fighting to create spaces for our communities to talk, be seen, breathe- safely. The Eastside does not yet have the infrastructure to hold the level of fear, grief, isolation, and exhaustion our queer and trans communities are carrying right now. We are still building those spaces in real time while people are simultaneously being told they are dangerous and wrong simply for existing.

We desperately need support for advocates like No Hate in WA State, which is educating communities around dangerous ballot initiatives (IL26-001 & IL26-638) and helping organize responses before more harm is done

We cannot keep asking vulnerable communities to survive this alone.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Axton Burton

Naomi Bryant

Robbin Fletcher

Rye Radetski

MaKenna Thompson