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Bianca Bankz was the fourth known trans or gender non-conforming person to be killed, and the third Black trans woman.
Bankz, also known as ‘Muffin’, had just moved into a new home near the Bankhead area of northwest Atlanta. Multiple gunshots were heard on Sunday, January 17. Responding police officers found Bankz and another man dead.
Police and other sources have indicated to Planet Transgender that this was a murder-suicide, with “friends say[ing]… her life was taken by a man in her home, who ultimately took his own life.”
TaSheena Brown, a senior police officer in the Atlanta Police Department, stated that “[Investigators] are not looking for any outstanding people of interest in this case. This was not random and is not a threat to the public.”
Bankz was 31 and a former foster child that had recently begun transitioning, and had dreamed of becoming a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race. The Trans Housing Coalition, which supported her in moving into her own apartment, is now paying for her funeral. Local LGBTQ website ProjectQ.us reports this is the sixth murder or questionable death of a trans or gender non-conforming person in Georgia since March 2020. Bonaire “Bonnie” Black, Kimberely Patricia Cope, Felycya Harris, KaKedius “Rebel” Reid, and Scottlyn Kelly Devore, have all also died either violently or suspiciously in the last year. Black, Cope, Harris and now Bankz’s deaths have all been reported since November.