Houston’s LGBTQ+ community will hold a vigil for Persia Amarra Conway: 'Your death will not be in vain'

This story originally appeared on Them.

According to local NBC affiliate KPRC, who spoke with organizers, the vigil will also encourage greater awareness about Conway’s case, which so far has produced no arrests and no information from police during the investigation. (Conway herself was publicly identified not by the Houston Police Department, but by family members who posted about her death this past weekend.)The vigil is scheduled to be held tonight, June 2, at the Montrose Center, an LGBTQ+ community hub in central Houston.

A flyer for the event invites community members to “remember Persia” and to process grief over a recent wave of violence against trans people in the United States. At least seven trans people were killed in March, April, and May alone; Conway’s death came shortly after after the May 17 stabbing of Eryka Caldwell, also a trans woman of color, in Brooklyn.

“Violence against transgender women, especially trans women of color, continues at unacceptable rates, and no one should carry that grief alone,” the Montrose Center wrote in a post about the vigil. “Her mother promised to speak her name. So will we.”

Conway was identified this past weekend on Facebook by Michelle P. Simmons, who wrote in a May 29 Facebook post, “Most people may not know this, but I am the proud mother of a beautiful transgender daughter, Persia Amarra Conway. A few days ago, my world changed forever. A monster in Houston, Texas, took my baby’s life.”

Simmons remembered her daughter as “a light” and “a force” who could “walk into a room and leave it brighter than she found it.”

Simmons has continued to post tributes to Conway, writing on May 31 that she hopes the investigation into the death will produce results. “Now the anger has surfaced,” she wrote. “Don’t worry baby girl you have a tribe of prayer warriors praying for the monster to be revealed.”

“Your death will not be in vain,” she added in a post about tonight’s vigil.

The sad occasion arrives at the start of a month of Pride events in Houston, with the focal weekend moved up to June 5th through 7th to avoid overlapping with FIFA and World Cup festivities, as 365 Houston noted. The Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce promoted the vigil on its Instagram page on the first day of Pride, writing, “The violence facing transgender women, particularly Black and Brown trans women, is a crisis that demands our attention, our voices, and our collective care.”

Little is known about the circumstances of Conway’s death beyond the fact that she was found naked by the waterway, and that police identified her as transgender based on the appearance of her body. The Houston Chronicle initially reported that detectives suspect the clothes might have been removed to interfere with the collection of evidence.

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