ON AN OVERCAST DAY IN LATE OCTOBER, Dee Dee Watters stood on the stage at the University of Houston’s Cullen Performance Hall. She had forgone the traditional black of mourning for a purple flowered dress and large gold hoop earrings. She clasped her hands, adorned with her signature long, painted nails, around a black pillow as she peered out at the masked crowd spread throughout the auditorium. To commemorate the death of fellow Black transgender activist Monica Roberts, Watters, who organized the memorial, performed an original spoken-word piece that Roberts had held dear, told from the perspective of a Black mother recalling her trans child’s baptism and murder, wishing she could hold her daughter one last time. “You can tell your child that you love them. You can tell yourself that you love yourself. You can tell God that, ‘I thank you for blessing me with something that was ohhh so different,’” said Watters. She closed: “Ashé. And so it is.”