Transgender Woman Brutally Beaten After LGBTQ Party in Wynwood (VIDEO)

Police are investigating an incident in which a transgender woman and her peer were beaten, knocked out cold, and hospitalized after a man allegedly became infuriated about a comment insulting his penis size.

A witness, Kaci Melendez, tells New Times that what began as a lively night at an LGBTQ rooftop party in Wynwood ended with trauma and a blood-soaked trip to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Relaying the narrative she told police, Melendez says the confrontation began in the late-night hours on November 26, when she and her group were leaving an LGBTQ "White Party" and met up outside with a friend in the arts district. Melendez told police that the friend became upset when she heard "catcalls" from a group of men and that the woman confronted them.

Melendez says that during the verbal dispute, insults flew back and forth, and one of the men derided the group's LGBTQ background, suggesting that lesbians would never experience satisfying sexual intercourse. According to the police report, Melendez's friend then told another individual, the alleged assailant, that he had a "small penis," prompting him to make a crude comment about the genitalia of a transgender woman in the group.

The report describes how things quickly escalated. Melendez told police the man went ballistic and proceeded to clobber the woman who insulted his manhood. She fell to the ground, hit her head on the concrete, and was left unconscious in a pool of blood.

A fight then broke out between the group of men and a member of the injured woman's clique.

A clip posted online of the incident shows that the trans woman, who is wearing a white dress, was struck in the face by a man wearing a white T-shirt and then again, and seemingly harder, by another man from the group. According to Melendez's account, the woman was not hitting anyone and was trying to break up the fight when she received the heavy blows, which knocked her unconscious and caused a severe head injury. (Some of the individuals in the video are bystanders and are not accused of violent conduct.)

In the aftermath of the incident, the wife of one of the injured women was screaming hysterically. Her voice can be heard in later footage, echoing through the city block around 3:30 a.m.

A Miami Police Department spokesperson tells New Times that police are investigating whether the incident will be treated as a hate attack.

"We are working with the SAO Hate Crime Task Force and our LGBTQ+ Liaison to determine if it rises to the level of a hate crime," spokesperson Orlando Rodriguez writes in an email.

All of the victims asked that their names not be published out of privacy concerns while they recover from their injuries. Their identities are redacted from the police report.
Police responded to the scene to find the first knocked-out woman face-up on the sidewalk with a heavy stream of blood gushing from her head. She was transported to Jackson Memorial with serious injuries, including a gaping laceration to the head, a severe concussion, and a skull fracture, according to Melendez.

Melendez says her trans friend was also hospitalized at Jackson Memorial and remains devastated by the incident. She has been timid about going outside and was reluctant to let her children see her swollen, bruised face after the assault, Melendez says.

"She was severely traumatized. She normally likes to play basketball, volleyball, but now she doesn't even want to leave the house or do activities. She's seeing a therapist to try to recover," Melendez tells New Times.

According to the police report, one of the men who was present during the initial argument was Bryan "El Gallo" Duran. A local bare-knuckle boxer and Cuba-born fighter, Duran has nearly 60,000 followers on Instagram (@bryanelgalloduran). Melendez says Duran was involved in the verbal dispute but did not strike her friends and wasn't one of the individuals who became violent during the incident.

In the report, the police did not release the names of the two men who are accused of assault. The investigation is ongoing, and it's unclear if they'll be charged with any crime.

If the incident is determined to be a hate crime, it would add to a wave of anti-trans violence and transphobia plaguing the United States and Florida.

At least 33 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in America in violent incidents and assaults this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Most were transgender women, and nearly 90 percent were people of color, noted the report, which included domestic violence in the assessment. More than 170 trans people have been violently killed in the last four years.

The increasingly tense culture wars have fanned the flames of intolerance against trans people in the last few years. At least 16 bills in Florida that directly or indirectly target trans people were introduced in 2023 alone, according to Equality Florida.