During one week in summer 2014, three transgender women were shot, one fatally, near the park. In a three-month span, three black trans or gender-nonconforming people were killed in Detroit this year, two near Palmer Park. The violence is getting more wild and more crazy. “People are kinda ruthless now more than ever, you know,” said Dawson. The area is known as an enclave for LGBT people during the daytime, but at night, the park’s 300 acres of fields and forest are the city’s epicenter of violence against transgender women - a problem worsening at the same time awareness about transgender people has been growing. Out as a transgender woman for seven years, Dawson was standing across from Detroit’s Palmer Park on Woodward Avenue. “I know of seven girls who have been murdered out here,” said Lakyra Dawson.
