Muhlaysia Booker

UPDATE: Transgender Pride of Dallas members have cancelled their call for transgender people and their allies to attend a Thursday hearing during which the judge is expected to rule on defense attorneys’ request that assault victim Muhlaysia Booker be dead-named and referred to as a man during the trial of Edward Thomas.

Orgamizer Jayla Wilkerson said Tuesday evening that having a large number of people attend the hearing could prompt defense attorney to file other motions and requests that could require further hearings and possibly delay the trial or put other restrictions on it.

Thomas is being tried on aggravated assault charges in connection with an attack last April on Booker, a trans woman, that was captured on video which then went viral.

Transgender Pride of Dallas is urging the North Texas LGBT community and our allies to “Show up for Muhlaysia Booker” at a hearing, set for Thursday, Aug. 29, from 9 a.m.-noon, regarding the defense attorney’s motion that Booker be dead-named and referred to as a man during the trial for Edward Thomas, the man who assaulted her last April in an attack captured on video by a bystander.

Booker became well-known in Texas and across the country last April when that video of her being beaten in the parking lot at her apartment complex while a crowd of onlookers laughed and jeered went viral. Little more than a month later, on May 18, Booker was found shot to death in the middle of an East Dallas street. Another man, Kendrell Lavar Lyles, has been arrested and charged with her murder.

Police arrested Edward Thomas and charged him with aggravated assault on Booker shortly before she was murdered. His trial on those charges is set for October, but according to news reports this week, Thomas’ attorneys are objecting to prosecutors’ request that Booker be referred to in the indictment as Muhlaysia and as a woman, rather than dead-naming her and calling her a man.

Thomas’ attorneys said, “Pierre Booker is legally a male by gender. To name him ‘Muhlaysia’ Booker could have the jury wrongfully conclude that Pierre is female. … This is prejudicial against our client, who is male.”

Calling the defense attorneys’ insistence that Booker be dead-named a “hate-induced motion,” Jayla Wilkerson with Transgender Pride of Dallas, in a post on Facebook, encouraged the community and allies to “Come fill the seats and show the judge our support for our fallen sister.” She also warned those planning to attend that anyone who becomes disruptive would be removed from the court, and that such behavior would reflect badly on the community as a whole.

While noting that “formal attire” is not necessary, Wilkerson — who is a former Dallas County prosecutor — asked those attending to “please dress appropriately to be in court.” She asked anyone with questions or concerns to message TPoD via Facebook.

“Let’s show these transphobic defense attorneys who they’re dealing with,” the TPoD post says. “Let’s show this judge that we are watching and supporting our sister. Let’s show the prosecutors that we appreciate the fact that they won’t back down to hateful, disrespectful demands. Let’s show up for Muhlaysia.”

The hearing will take place in Judge Hector Garza’s 195 District Court on the seventh floor of the Frank Crowley Courthouse, 133 N. Riverfront Blvd. Dallas, because there is no free parking at the courthouse, “we suggest carpool, DART or Uber/Lyft if possible,” the TPoD post noted.

Booker’s murder sparked fears that a serial killer may be targeting transgender women in Dallas when police acknowledged that her death bore similarities to that of a trans woman named Brittney White who was found murdered in her car at a South Dallas apartment complex the previous October, and to an attack on another trans woman the month before Booker’s death. When Chynal Lindsey’s body was found in White Rock Lake less than a month later, those fears escalated.

Dallas police announced June 12 that they had arrested Kendrell Lavar Lyles in connection with Booker’s murder and considered him a “person of interest” in the murders of White and Lindsey and in the attack on the fourth trans woman, who has not been publicly identified. However, on June 20, police announced they had arrested Ruben Alvarado in connection with Lindsey’s murder. Police have not released any further information on whether Lyles remains a person of interest in the murder of Britney White or the attack on the fourth trans woman.

—’ Tammye Nash