Jaimee A. Swift is a writer and Ph.D. candidate at Howard University studying racialized, gendered, state-sanctioned violence and anti-LGBTQ+ violence in Brazil. You can follow her on Twitter at @JaimeeSwift.

Dália Costa, a transgender college student, was attending an event centering on LGBT inclusivity at the Federal University of Pernambuco’s Recife campus in Brazil this past March. As she was walking to the bus stop with some friends after the event, she was berated by a cis man who constantly asked her and her friends if she was a woman. Disliking Dália’s response, when she walked away, the man threw a stone at her and punched her face. She said the man was joined by other attackers, who during the physical assault, touched her inappropriately and threatened to “break her face.”

Sharing her horrific ordeal and injuries on Facebook, Dália wrote about how much the transphobic and racialized-gendered assault took a toll on her physically, emotionally and psychologically:

I have not cried for a long time, and today I cried. I cried ashamed to get home and look at my mother with a face that is not mine. Black, trans, feminist and peripheral woman. Humiliated, beaten and harassed.

Unfortunately, Dália’s assault is not an anomaly for many trans women of African descent in Brazil. Read more via Truthout