Iyanna Dior Explains Transphobic, Brutal Beating In Viral Video

After a video of her brutal beating at the hands of over 10 cisgender men and women went viral online, Keyonna "Iyanna Dior" Kamry has finally spoken publicly about the incident. In a Facebook Live with Dee Dee Waters, a woman helping her to manage everything since the videos were posted online, Kamry said she feared for her life, and fought to stay in the store to ensure what happened was on security footage.

"The only thing that's running through my mind is am I going to be safe, am I going to make it out of here, please don't let me leave this store," she said in the Live. "Like, let me get back in the store, just fight, get back in the store, don't let them take you out this store. I didn't care, I just wanted to stay in the store. I didn't want to die." Watters announced before Kamry began to recount the incident that they would not be taking questions.

In the video clip, which was filmed in St. Paul, Minnesota -- which is minutes away from Minneapolis, where a series of national protests in support of Black Lives Matter broke out following the police kiling of George Floyd -- Kamry is depicted being brutalized by a group, while a larger group looks on. While many have refrained from spreading the footage as it can provoke pain and trauma for other Black folks, no matter the intended reason, others have shared the story. Among these individuals are celebrities Leiomy Maldonado, Meg Thee Stallion, and Kandi Burruss who all posted support on Instagram.

According to the new video, Kamry had been hanging out with friends in St. Paul when one asked her to go move their car. She went out and, in the process of moving it, accidently hit other vehicles.

"When I reversed back I had drove up and I was going to do a U-turn to turn back around but I ended up hitting three cars," Kamry said. On social media many categorized the accident as a "fender bender" but Kamry did not specify how much damage was done. After hitting the cars, she ran back to her friends to tell them what happened.

"At this point now that I did this I'm like ok this is like a hood-gang area so a lot of people are [about to] come out of these buildings and try to attack me," she said. "So I'm this, 'y'all can we please just go. Lynette get in your car, I'm going to pay for it, please can we go, I don't want to be attacked.'"

And while Lynette, at first tried to do that, when she realized the tires of her car were flat that was no longer an option. By this point, people had come out of the buildings to see what had happened. Among those was Lynette's cousin who tried to physically pull Kamry out of the vehicle. Kamry, who was becoming increasingly afraid, resisted.

"I'm not going nowhere, I don't feel safe," she recounted. "I'm not getting out the car." As the crowd began to grow, Kamry finally got out of the car and started to walk down an ally behind Sam's Deli. She was pursued.

"[A] dude came up after me and was like some 'I don't know what your little gay ass is doing," she said. Kamry is a woman of trans experience. The man was clutching his pants as he approached her. "He was like you ain't going no where until you up some money."

Kamry changed direction and walked to a parking lot. As a mob gathered yelling at her she began to ask another friend, who she had lived with a few months ago, if they could go to her house. The friend said no. Meanwhile the man from before was still yelling.

"I'm like this, just shut the fuck up talking to me seriously because at this point this isn't even your car, this is her car," Kamry allegedly said. She then went on to tell one woman, who owned one of the vehicles she hit, that she would give her $500. While she knew she didn't have the money at the time, Kamry wanted to buy herself some time and space. So the group moved into Sam's Deli under the idea that Kamry could get money there to pay, but the 20-year-old hoped to get inside for safety.

"It's like this if I'm going to die I want to die on camera, I want to go to the camera and if anything happens I want to go on camera and die," she said. "Not saying that's what I wanted to do but I wanted people to actually know what happened." Once in the store, she asked a worker to call the police who could hopefully come and control the situation and the incident could be handled in court. The worker refused and told her to leave the store. Kamry persisted and, with assistance from a friend, tried to get behind the shop counter or inside of a "cage" for protection. About 15 minutes into the exchange, store staff began to eject the crowd but Kamry, and the woman she had promised money to, refused to leave. Then, the first blow was thrown.

"She just sucker-punched my face," Kamry said. "I ran behind the counter. [After] I ran behind the counter everybody ran in the store." As the commotion returned with people yelling and Kamry thought back on what transpired, she reacted.

"I spit, I'm not even going to lie, I spit on her," she admitted. "Then after that all I know is somebody came over the counter this way, and somebody came over the counter that way." When another woman ran up to her, Kamry said she restrained the woman on the ground by her hair but didn't throw any actual punches.

"Then all I know everybody is coming around the counter grabbing me and I blacked out from there," she said. Kamry has had some visible bruising and scratches in the days since and reported being in pain. Some on social media have posited that what happened was justified as a result of the accident.

"This child is only 20 years old," Watters said in the video. "To have that many men and women that are adults to do something like that is really, really horrible."

In a live chat on the app BIGO, as well as on MOBI's website, Maldonado and Tati Miyake-Mugler from the ballroom scene both spoke on the incident.

"That little girl could have been killed in that store," Maldonaldo, who is currently one of the judges on HBO Max's Legendary said. "I don't think people care enough. The back story doesn't matter; they could have killed her."

Miyake-Mugler spoke similarly.

"I feel like this is the Black community and we have a long way to go," she said. "We're fighting what supremacy and we have to fight that but when we finish with that we have to fight what's happening in our own community."

Over the past few days, Kamry has posted two different CashApp accounts. Watters now said if people would like to donate to support Kamry, they should use this website. When Out tried to access the page it was unavailable.

"If the money was accepted from CashApp, great," she said. "But that's not what CashApp is set up for and so it's going to keep going down."

There have been no updates on whether there is an affiliated police investigation.

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