Published by Into
Banko has been gone three weeks.
San Francisco is perhaps best known for 3 things: being the most expensive city in the United States, hosting a huge element of the tech industry, and being a long-established place of safety for the LGBTQ+ community. However, the last point on that list might not be as well-cemented as we once thought. It appears that San Francisco is joining the list of places where a trans person can be murdered without the perpetrator facing any real justice.
Banko Brown was a community activist that had worked with the nonprofit Young Women’s Freedom Center in San Francisco since he was 12 years old. He was also a trans man and was the 11th trans or gender non-conforming individual reported by the HRC to have died by violence in 2023. Towards the end of April, Brown was accused of shoplifting at a San Francisco Walgreens. The security guard on duty, Michael Earl-Wayne Anthony shot Banko, who later died of his injuries. As an isolated incident, this would be abhorrent, but the context of the legal response around it makes it significantly worse.