CRIME
Beloved Trans Ballroom Performer Fatally Stabbed
Community mourns loss of 42-year-old Jahaira M. DeAlto
BY TAT BELLAMY-WALKER
A suspect has been
charged with the fatal
stabbing of a legendary
transgender performer
from Boston’s ballroom community.
The Boston Police Department
discovered the iconic artist Jahaira
M. DeAlto, a 42-year-old
transgender woman, and 27-yearold
Fatima Yasin suffering from
stab wounds at 26 Taft Street in
Dorchester, a neighborhood in Boston,
Massachusetts, on Sunday,
May 2, according to the Boston
Police Department and WCVB5,
which identifi ed the victims. A dog
was also injured, but two children,
who were at home during the incident,
were not physically harmed.
That same day, authorities arrested
34-year-old Marcus Chavis
of Dorchester, and he was arraigned
in Dorchester District Court on
Monday, May 3. WCVB5 reports
that after the attack, Chavis called
911 and admitted to stabbing both
women. Chavis is facing multiple
charges, including two counts of
murder and animal cruelty.
DeAlto was a member of the
House of Balenciaga and frequently
walked the realness category
Man Punched in Homophobic Attack in Manhattan
Suspect pounced on victim at a CVS in midtown
BY EMILY DAVENPORT
The NYPD is looking for
a bigot who made antigay
statements while
attacking a man at a
Manhattan CVS on April 24.
A 24-year-old man was entering
CVS, located at 5 Pennsylvania
Plaza, at around 7 p.m. when he
was approached by an unknown
man, according to police.
The suspect then punched the
Jahaira M. DeAlto, a transgender woman and performer in Boston’s ballroom scene, was fatally
stabbed on Sunday, May 2.
in Boston’s ballroom scene. In a
statement on Facebook, Harold
Balenciaga, one of the members of
the House of Balenciaga, said her
death is a tremendous loss within
the community.
“The House of Balenciaga regretfully
acknowledges the death/
murder of our own Jahaira M.
DeAlto, a community advocate and
friend to many,” Balenciaga wrote
victim in the back of the head
and neck in an unprovoked attack.
During the assault, police say
that the suspect said something to
the effect of “f—ing gays” and ‘f—-
t.’ The suspect then fl ed the scene
on foot westbound on 34th Street
towards Ninth Avenue.
The victim refused medical attention
at the scene, according
to authorities. The NYPD’s Hate
Crime Task Force is investigating
the incident.
wrote in a text message to Gay
City News. “I still don’t understand
why she was stabbed. She was so
sweet.”
Mugler further described DeAlto
as an “angel,” adding that the activist
had a signifi cant impact on LGBTQ
people and will be “missed.”
In a post last year, DeAlto recalled
her journey as a house
mother helping LGBTQ people who
lacked family support.
“I am the mother who raised the
children whose rainbow sparkled
too brightly and blinded their
birth moms,” she wrote to Twitter
in a thread. “I cherished what
they discarded. I took on earthly
assignments for moms who’d
earned their heavenly reward.
For their babies who still needed
raising. I did that. And I’m still
doing that. And I’ll keep doing
that. Because I will never know
what seeing my DNA refl ected in
another’s eyes could look like, but
I know what gratitude in the eyes
of a young person who fi nally
feels seen looks like. And for me,
that’s enough.”
DeAlto’s death is the latest
known killing of a transgender individual
in 2021 and comes amid
record levels of anti-transgender
violence in the US.
NYPD
TWITTER/ JAHAIRA M. DEALTO
in a post on Facebook. “Let us not
forget her ongoing work against domestic
abuse and continue to uplift
her name and ensure her memory
lives on in this ironic twist of fate.”
Members from New York’s ballroom
community also mourned
the performer’s death.
“She was very special to me. I’m
still processing it, ” Zoey Mugler,
a member of the House of Mugler,
The moment when a man punched another man while voicing homophobic rhetoric, according to police.
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