Jasmine Sierra

The body of Jasmine Sierra, a trans woman of color, was found on January 22, 2016, in an apartment on the 1000 block on Monterey Street in Bakersfield, CA. Police will state that her body showed signs of trauma and will say that foul play is likely the cause of her death. Police interviewed neighbors, who will comment on hearing gunshots and fighting, but will not release statements about the circumstances of Sierra’s death. Jasmine experienced being mis-gendered and dead-named by the police who were handling her case. In fact her family and friends would not be notified of her death until two months after she had died because of this issue. This highlights a terrible and recurring issue of both police and the media not knowing how to handle cases involving the trans and gender variant communities. This type of mishandling can be a contributing factor to some of these cases going unsolved and unknown by the general public. The information about this case is almost nonexistent and in fact she is not even listed on the Bakersfield Police Departments unsolved cases page.