Horror: Black trans drag queen Quanesha Shantel fatally shot

Quanesha “Cocoa” Shantel, a Black transgender woman and popular drag performer, was shot to death November 10 in Greensboro, N.C., and her former boyfriend has been arrested.

Shantel was sitting in her car outside the ex-boyfriend’s apartment when she was shot three times with a semi-automatic weapon, The North Carolina Beat reports. She still managed to drive a short distance, but she crashed her car and died at the scene.

Police arrested the former boyfriend, Jeremy Reynolds, 31, two days later. Reynolds, who was apparently enraged after Shantel broke up with him a few months ago, is charged with first-degree murder and discharging a barreled firearm into an occupied dwelling or vehicle. He was denied bond and remains in custody.

Shantel, who was in her mid-to-late 20s — news outlets are stating various ages — was active in the ballroom community and was a member of the House of Mizrahi. She participated in drag and ballroom events throughout the Southeast and as far away as Chicago. She had recently entered nursing school.

She came out as trans early in life. “She came to me at age 11 and said, ‘Mama, I want to transition over,’” her mother, Toi Ni’Cole Ratliff, told the Greensboro News & Record.

“You wouldn’t imagine that a young person would know it at that age, but she did,” Ratliff added. “And I told her, ‘I’ll support you through it. But if you do it, do it right.’ And she had it from there!”

“We grieve the death of Cocoa,” Tori Cooper, director of community engagement for the Human Rights Campaign’s Transgender Justice Initiative, said in a press release. “Like so many of our trans siblings, Cocoa should be with her loved ones today, and I pray that Cocoa’s friends and family find some measure of peace and joy in the memories of her during this extremely difficult time. Choosing violence against anyone for any reason is unacceptable and inexcusable as is the inaction by those in power who turn a blind eye to gun violence and transphobia to suit their own political agendas. It’s time for communities across this country to reckon with the fact that their silence makes them complicit. Hateful stereotypes, rhetoric, and legislation fuel violence against transgender people. We must demand better of our elected officials as well as each other.”

Shantel is at least the 30^th trans, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming person to have died by violence in the U.S. in 2024. There are likely many more, as some are deadnamed or misgendered by police or media, or their deaths not reported at all.