Prince
Harry and Meghan Markle posted a
collage of pictures on
Instagram that included a photo of Muhlaysia Booker, a Dallas transgender woman who was
slain a month after she
was savagely beaten in an attack captured on
video.
The British royal couple created the post
to kick off Pride
month, which recognizes the impact of the LGBT
community around the world. Booker appears in the upper-left
corner of the nine-image collage.
“This month we pay tribute to the accounts supporting the LGBTQ+
community — those young and old,
their families and friends, accounts that reflect on the past and are hopeful for a deservedly more inclusive future,”
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex wrote on Instagram.
“We stand with you and support you. Because it’s very simple:
love is love.”
Booker, 22, was found shot to death May 18 in a street
in far east Dallas.
A month earlier, she was beaten up by a crowd at an apartment complex in
east Oak cliff. During the attack, a bunch of men punched and
stomped on booker after she was involved in a minor accident in the car parking
zone.
She told police her attackers shouted discriminatory slurs during the beating, which left her with a concussion and a broken wrist.
Police made an arrest in the April assault, however investigators said they’d no leads in Booker’s slaying. They did, however, note its similarity to recent attacks
on 2 other trans women.
Prince Harry and his wife didn’t mention booker in the post, which also included a picture of Princess Diana, Harry’s mother,
comforting an AIDS
patient in a hospital bed in an encounter that
helped change public opinion about the illness when she shook the man’s hand.
The Today Show, in a story concerning the Instagram post,
saluted Diana by recalling a speech her son made in 2017 in her honor.
“When that April, she shook the
hand of a 32-year-old man with HIV, in front of the cameras, she knew exactly what she was
doing,” Prince Harry said. “She was using her position as princess of Wales — the most famous woman in the world — to challenge everyone to educate themselves; to find their compassion; and to reach out to those who need help instead of pushing
them away.”