I didn’t know or even know of Transtifa — I’m not a Twin Cities person — but I have to admire the work mentioned in this testimonial:
Been meaning to make this post for a while and putting it off bc idk how to do it right, but here goes: earlier this summer I learned of the passing in April of the legendary Twin Cities tagger Transtifa, who tormented local nextdoor nerds and facebook fascists more than perhaps any single person over the past 5+ years.
Seeing a transtifa tag around town always made me and my homies smile – and you were bound to see them everywhere, because that bitch got AROUND. How did she do so much? I learned how one day after catching a glimpse of her roller skating down a dark street at lightning speed in a crop top and short shorts, bag of spray cans and paint pens slung over her shoulder.
I was hashtag blessed enough to meet her before Transtifa took off, thanks to (and this fits her perfectly) grindr. We didn’t totally hit if off at the time (mostly bc i figured she was totally out of my league, lol) but we did have a nice stroll around town sharing art tips. Later we worked together on some art in advance of an action and damn, her freehand lettering sucked but she blew me away by climbing out to paint the outside of a railroad bridge with zero hesitation. Tbh just the amount of haters she had was admirable.
She was one of the boldest and bravest people I knew, one of the few people I’ve ever remained in awe of after meeting them, and lived far more in her too-few years than most people do in a lifetime. I didn’t know her well but I miss her a lot–just knowing she was around tearing up the streets gave me something vaguely like hope.
I’d say be the transtifa you want to see in the world, but there won’t be another quite like her and I wish I’d told more how much I appreciated her when I could. Rest in power and paint, girl.
She sounds like a good person. I don’t know that I want to know what happened to her — too often the fate of trans women is shocking and depressing.
I think she was brutally murdered by the haters whom she lashed out against offline and online. If so, them may her killers be caught and punished!
I am in the twin cities and have never seen a Transtifa tag. But, i think that’s because she hung around the Uptown area, and I haven’t been there much since I moved out.
though, now, via Bader-Meinhoff, I will see her tags all over i’m sure!
So far I found two references to a person named “transtifa,” both on Reddit. There’s a u/transtifa, who last posted “1d ago”:
Laughable to talk about empathy when you’ve just fully leant into a misogynistic caricature as if it’s a real and present danger
But the same user posted on r/Minneapolis a few years ago, one commenter said “I finally found you! I like you dude” and another said “its not her [the] real one died 4 days ago or so transtifas name was sloane she was a transfem from Minneapolis that did train hopping she died in tennesee this week while doing a train tag.” But that comment was “3mo ago”. So this “transtifa” died about 3 months ago. That would track with the OP’s statement that they’d heard of her death in April “earlier this summer”.
Not enough Fenix Downs for Ruby Weapon.
Here’s the Reddit subthread where someone else posts with the name “transtifa” and one other commenter, Professional_Leave21, points out that that’s not the same transtifa who died in Tennessee in May (not April) of this year:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minneapolis/comments/o0w0b1/transtifa/
(The user transtifa who appeared on that thread also apologized for any offense caused by using that name.)
PS: Searching for “transtifa” turned up several articles, in places like New Tolerance Project, Faux and Newsweak, about some alleged violent radical leftist organization called “Trantifa” or Transtifa.” Offhand, I’m just gonna guess they’re another COINTELPRO fraud like “Antifa.”