Made with the Los Angeles Community Action Network (LA CAN), this portrait series was created during the 2022 Transgender Day of Remembrance observance in Skid Row. Participants were invited to take a rose for every person they'd lost, holding them in frame so those names were present in the image as an act of public remembrance and insistence on safety and visibility.

In 2022, the Human Rights Campaign tracked at least 41 killings of transgender and gender-expansive people in the United States, noting that many victims were Black and Latine trans women. Actual totals are likely higher due to misreporting and underreporting. Globally, Transgender Europe’s Trans Murder Monitoring recorded 327 trans and gender-diverse people reported murdered between Oct. 1, 2021 and Sept. 30, 2022. These portraits sit within that documented violence while resisting its erasure.

Barriers to basic services compound the risk. Findings from the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey (Early Insights) reported that 24% of respondents avoided seeing a doctor in the prior year due to fear of mistreatment, and 28% skipped needed care because of cost, underscoring why community-rooted support and access to affirming care remain critical. The roses, counted, carried and shown, mark grief and solidarity while asserting a claim to dignity and life.