First US execution of openly trans woman could take place today

Unless Missouri Gov. Mike Parson grants clemency, Amber McLaughlin, 49, will become the first openly transgender woman to be executed in the U.S. She is scheduled to die by injection Tuesday for killing a former girlfriend in 2003.

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Larry Komp, McLaughlin’s attorney, said there are no court appeals pending.

The clemency request focuses on several issues, including McLaughlin’s traumatic childhood and mental health issues, which the jury never heard in her trial. A foster parent rubbed feces in her face when she was a toddler and her adoptive father used a stun gun on her, according to the clemency petition. It says she suffers from depression and attempted suicide multiple times.

There is no known case of an openly transgender inmate being executed in the U.S., according to the anti-execution Death Penalty Information Center.

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