DALLAS — The funeral for Muhlaysia Booker, a Dallas transgender woman found shot and killed weeks after being attacked, was held Tuesday morning.
The ceremony for the 22-year-old at the Cathedral of Hope had 440 attendees.
Booker’s mother Stephanie Houston was one of about a dozen people who addressed the crowd.
“[Muhlaysia] was born to me as Pierre. Pierre's always been a character. He's always been the jokester. He's always been the upbeat happy child,” Houston said. “Muhlaysia was a [spitting] image of me. But it was so hard for me to see because to me, he was my son. So my son's supposed to act different. And my girl's supposed to act like me. That’s what I thought.”
Booker was found lying facedown in the street in the 7200 block of Valley Glen Drive around 6:44 a.m. on May 18. The Dallas Police Department said she was killed.
Last month, video of a group of people beating Booker went viral. Edward Thomas, 29, was arrested on an aggravated assault charge and later released on a $75,000 bond.
And just last week, Dallas Police said two other unsolved cases involving transgender women in the area might be related.
“Her back has been against the wall so many times," Houston said. "And that’s one of the reasons I didn’t want her to be who she was, because it’s already hard for our black men. A black, gay man [who wants to] be transgender? I see all the hating. All the stuff she went through were the things I wanted to prevent her from going through."
Booker’s case remains unsolved. She is one of 33 homicide victims in the city of Dallas for the month of May.