When Lisa Woods reminisces about her daughter Nikki Kuhnhausen, one story makes her especially proud.
Kuhnhausen was one of a handful of transgender high school students at Hudson’s Bay High School in Vancouver, Washington between 2015 and 2019. She was known for being tough, and often got disciplined at school for fighting with other students who picked on her or a friend. One day in her sophomore year, she saw a younger trans student crying outside the women’s restroom. Other teens had kicked the student out.
“Nikki demanded their names,” says Woods, speaking at her home in a heavily forested neighborhood in Vancouver. Woods is a middle-aged woman with wavy blonde hair and sad eyes, though they perk up when she recounts this story. “She went and got them and made them apologize,” says Woods, who adds that the student was never bullied again. “[They were] safe with Nikki around.”
This is one of many memories Woods has returned to since December 7, 2019, when the Vancouver Police Department told her Kuhnhausen had been murdered in what officers believed was an act of anti-trans violence. Kuhnhausen, who was 17 years old at the time of her death, was one of at least 26 trans women to be murdered in the United States last year.
“She was never afraid to be Nikki,” Woods says. “I fear that’s a part of the reason why she got killed, because she didn’t think anybody would hurt her.”
