Trans Woman Still Hospitalized While Man Who Shot Her Goes Free

Daniela Calderon is currently confined to her hospital bed after being shot six times by an assailant in September. While she crowdsource funds to pay her medical bills and to begin her long road to recovery, Domingo Ramirez-Cayente, who confessed to committing the brutal assault, has been released from jail.

According to an arrest-warrant affidavit, Calderon, 35, was walking alone on September 20 just after 11 p.m. when 29-year-old Ramirez-Cayente pulled up in a red Chevrolet pickup and began yelling homophobic and transphobic slurs.

According to a new interview with Calderon, the altercation began after Ramirez-Cayente attempted to solicit sex from her. After agreeing on terms, things took a turn when Calderon revealed she was a trans woman.

"Then he tells me, 'Oh you're a man,'" Calderon told Dallas News. A dispute followed, wherein he began using transphobic and homophobic language and Calderon fleed.

After walking away from the truck towards a nearby bus stop, Calderon's attacker followed her before shooting her in the abdomen, chest, and arm.

"He took out the gun," Calderon said. "And the rest was terrible."

The truck and Ramirez-Cayente, were caught on CCTV footage during the attack.

Though he confessed to the shooting and was charged with aggravated assault, Ramirez-Cayente was released from Dallas County Jail on a $25,000 bail a couple of days after he was arrested.

"Who does justice serve, if by paying a bond a man can leave and this crime can go unpunished?" Calderon said. "Or, what if he had killed me? It's unjust. In these moments, I feel courage, lots of frustration. He shot me because he hates gay people. I never had contact with him. I never touched him, nothing. Then, why would he shoot me without knowing me? This is a person who is bad in the head and those people should not be on the outside."

While Calderon still lies in the hospital recovering, a community of activists have begun to raise funds for her to assist.

"She is out of critical condition but she is still in the state where they have to watch her closely," Stacey Monroe, and organizer with La Organizacion Latina de Trans en Texas told theDallas Morning News. Monroe is helping to spearhead the fundraising effort. "She's going through a lot mentally and physically. ... We can feel her pain. We sense her sadness, and it's heartbreaking, honestly."

LGBTQ+ activists such as Indya Moore, Chella Man, and more took to social media to share Calderon's GoFundMe which has reached $9,000 of its $20,000 goal as of Sunday.

Calderon's attack comes during a string of ongoing violence towards transgender women. There has been at least 18 reported murders of transgender people this year with 17 of them being transgender women.

RELATED | Dallas Police Arrest Man After Confession for Shooting Trans Woman