Torture, murder of New York trans man shines light on rising fears

Protesters take part in a “Rise up for Trans Youth” demonstration at Union Square in New York on February 8, 2025. Agence France-Presse

NEW YORK — US prosecutors gave a graphic account Wednesday of the torture and murder of a transgender man whose case has highlighted the growing dangers faced by the trans community.

Sam Nordquist was abducted, beaten and sexually assaulted for weeks before his body was hidden, prosecutors said, announcing seven adults had been indicted for the Black 24-year-old’s murder.

Nordquist traveled from Minnesota to New York to meet an online contact who was among those indicted Wednesday.

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Nordquist’s family had not heard from him since January and the last time he was seen was in early February.

The seven suspects had previously been indicted for lesser crimes, with the charge of first degree murder — the state’s most serious and carrying possible life imprisonment without parole — added Wednesday.

Two children were also allegedly involved in the beating of Nordquist, who was brutalized in a motel in Canandaigua, located in upstate New York.

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“Sam was beaten, assaulted, sexually abused, starved, held captive, and we cannot make sense of that,” said Ontario County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Wolford at a briefing.

Wolford said hate crime charges had not been brought because “we cannot put that on his gender, and we cannot put that on his race.”

“Sam was confined. He was forced to kneel and stand against a wall. He was physically assaulted,” Wolford added as she recounted the two children were believed to have been involved in Nordquist’s beating.

“We have a seven-year-old and a 12-year-old who are also victims. They may have been forced to participate, but their lives are forever changed by what they saw,” she said.

The seven adult suspects are alleged to have starved Nordquist, fed him feces, and forced him to drink urine.

“They forced him to obey their commands, treating him like a dog,” said Wolford.

The case has rocked the trans community and outraged activists.

“We refuse to let Sam’s story fade into silence. We demand accountability, we demand justice, and we demand a world where transgender people are safe, respected, and able to live freely,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president of the GLAAD LGBTQ campaign group, said in a statement last month.

GLAAD reported that there had been more than 800 anti-trans incidents in the US since June 2022.

Trump campaigned on a promise to ban transgender people from the military, outlaw federal funding for trans healthcare and to remove trans people from sports teams.

Since coming to office, he has passed a slew of executive orders targeting the community, including purging mentions of transgender people from government websites and slashing LGBTQ programs.

On his first day back in power, Trump signed an executive order recognizing only “two genders, male and female.”