In November, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released its yearly report on violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people. According to last year’s report, 33 “transgender and gender nonconforming” individuals lost their lives in the United States.
All between November 2022 and November 2023. The HRC President Kelley Robinson called it an “epidemic of violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people.” Kelley believes the deaths are the “result of a society that demeans and devalues anyone who dares challenge the gender binary.”
It makes one wonder what counts as violence against the “transgender” community. One death that happened after the HRC report’s window clues us in on how expansive the HRC’s definitions are.
On Friday, January 5, the group took to X with a picture with the caption, “Meghan Riley Lewis, a trans woman and a mother of two, devoted her life to feeding and housing queer people. She was killed in Bel Air, MD., on Dec. 27, 2023, marking at least the 31st violent killing of a trans or gender non-conforming person last year.”
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It made it sound like the senseless death of a martyr. But upon closer investigation, it turned out things were not what they seemed. According to a police report, the fatal altercation happened between Lewis and a food delivery driver named Brian Michael Delen. Delen, 47, was out on a food delivery at the time.
Court documents state that Delen asked Lewis, “Are you waiting for a food delivery, sir?”. However, Lewis took offense at the delivery man calling him “sir.” Then an argument broke out, with Lewis yelling at Delen as he began driving away.
Unsatisfied, Lewis trailed him on foot, causing Delen to eventually get out of his vehicle, after which the altercation escalated. At that point, Delen allegedly produced a gun and shot Lewis, killing him.
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Delen had a permit for the weapon, and he also sported visible injuries on his body. Of course, these details were not in HRC’s report. Fortunately, Journalist and senior editor at The Post Millenial Andy Ngo commented on HRC’s post, which described Lewis as “a trans woman and a mother of two, devoted her life to feeding and housing queer people.”
Ngo shared what looked like a court document with a photograph of Lewis as a man and captioned it, “Your post is misleading. Meghan Riley Lewis (pictured below), previously known as Jimmy Wayne Lewis, lived life as a heterosexual male.
Lewis’s two children have a mother, the woman who was granted a protective order against Lewis in a domestic violence case.” “The man charged in this homicide incident says Lewis accosted and pursued him during a food delivery, leading to a fight. Lewis was shot and died. Brian Delen, the charged man, had documented injuries,” Ngo added.
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It is still an open case, but it is clear there was more to the story than HRC made readers believe. There is evidence showing that the alleged shooter had injuries on his body consistent with his story that the shooting was the result of an altercation, not a hate crime.
After Ngo’s comment, HRC locked the comment section of its X account. It was a bid to stop the influx of comments calling them out for deceptive reporting. But it was too late.
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