YASQUEEN: Amber McLaughlin is the First Trans Woman to be Executed by Lethal Injection

Andrew StilesJanuary 4, 2023

The United States continues its claim to be the most inclusive and progressive country in the world. On Tuesday, for example, Amber McLaughlin made history as the first openly transgender woman to be executed by lethal injection.

McLaughlin (49) was sentenced to the death penalty in Missouri in 2003 for murdering and fatally stabbing Beverly Guenther. McLaughlin, a convicted murderer who started to transition from male to female around three years ago, has since apologized and said that she was a “good person.” “loving and caring person.”

Gov. Mike Parson (R. Mo. By denying her last-minute request of clemency, Parson helped the death row inmate achieve this historic feat. “McLaughlin terrorized Ms. Guenther in the final years of her life, but we hope her family and loved ones may finally have some peace,” Parson made the following statement in writing after his death sentence was executed.

McLaughlin’s historic achievement is yet another victory for advocates of equality and inclusion. Only 17 women (cisgender) have been able to join the rare ranks of executed Americans since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated. This is 1.09 percent of all prisoners who were executed during that period.

Trans women make up 0.06 percent of Americans who are executed by the government as of Wednesday. While it may not sound like much at first, it is a significant step on the slow march toward progress. McLaughlin and Gov. Parson’s steadfast leadership, the long arc of the moral universe was bent ever so slightly toward justice.

This extraordinary feat of American exceptionalism occurred several weeks after diversity advocates celebrated another loss-related death. milestone for female inclusion in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where a lowly woman played a key role in the terrorist regime’s first public execution since President Joe Biden’s botched military withdrawal in 2021.