“It’s hard enough being of another race, let alone somebody who is transgender ,” Shipman told. They were sacred.”Īs relatives struggle to gain interest from locals in the region, they have found national support from indigenous groups who have stepped up to raise awareness of Aubrey’s case.ĭeborah Maytubee Shipman, founder and director of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women USA, often referred to as the MMIWUSA, is one of the biggest supporters in Aubrey’s case. “They could walk between two worlds, the world of a woman and the world of a man. “Two-Spirits were held in high regard before colonization,” Christian told. “Views opposed to the ones that stopped at the city limit signs.”Īubrey referred to herself as a Two-Spirit, a Native American term describing people possessing a blend of male and female spirits. “She found people who had worldly views,” Christian continued. That’s who she was.”Īubrey and her uncle shared a special bond growing up, as Christian identifies as a gay man who is all-too-familiar with the homophobic attitudes of some of the locals. “When people ridiculed her, she never wanted revenge,” said Pam. “She faced people mocking her and calling her transphobic slurs,” said Christian, who was only six months older than his niece and more like a brother than an uncle.Ĭhristian explained that Aubrey was forced into an alternative school because her identity “was a distraction” to her classmates. In junior high, when Aubrey was still identifying as a male, she came out to friends and family. “She was finding out who she was, the person she’d been the entire time,” Christian told. The family showed a text where a detective said Aubrey’s phone last pinged at 3:42 a.m., not far from her home.Ĭhristian and Pam, Jen Byrd’s siblings, said they feared Aubrey, a transgender woman in the process of transitioning, may have been the victim of a hate crime. “Her medication was left, her purse was left, we have heard her phone was left.”Īubrey also lived in a rural area that was not within walking distance of anywhere significant. “Aubrey was epileptic, and she was dependent on medication,” Pam Smith told. When news got around to Aubrey’s maternal aunt and uncle, Pam Smith and Christian Fencer, red flags went up. Aubrey said she was going to meet someone.Ī missing person’s report was filed with the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office on March 11 by the girlfriend of Aubrey’s brother, according to relatives. She saw Aubrey leaving the house, dressed all in black. She returned to her family home that previous summer, where she lived with her mother, brother, and stepfather in rural Delaware County.īut in the early morning hours of March 9, 2019, Aubrey’s mother, Jen Byrd, woke up to use the bathroom at around 3:30 a.m. The Cherokee woman moved to the beat of her own drum, loved rock and roll, and carried with her an air of bubbly kindness and positivity. i appreciate the awareness but please please remove any threads/photos/info about this as it is doing more harm than good and spikes my anxiety even more.” In two more tweets, she apologized for not updating sooner and said people should respect her privacy.Small-town whispers blossomed into rumors before news found its way back to family: Aubrey was gone.Īubrey Dameron, 25, lived in the outskirts of Grove, part of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. i don’t want nor need this sort of attention. i would never lie or intentionally mislead anyone especially not complete strangers on the internet about something so life threatening and personal to me. what i posted on the 16th was completely out of instinct involving a domestic situation that had gone wrong. i was not being held captive, however i was placed in a dangerous situation that had activated my fight or flight hence the hysterical 3 second clip that was taken and ran with. She continued: “these past few days have been very traumatic for me and i don’t owe anyone an explanation as to what i’ve been through this week but i will say for now i am out of harms way. i am currently in a safe location, sound and alone, please stop spreading misinformation and please please do not spread anymore photos of me”. The first tweet in the tweet thread said: “hello. This was after Sai’s Twitter handle posted several tweets to convince people to call off the search for her. In the most recent chapter of the missing Ohio transsexual Black woman, Sai, the #findsai Twitter trend has been replaced by the #helpsai Twitter trend.
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