Brandi Bledsoe

Brandi Bledsoe was a 32-year-old woman from Cleveland whose life touched family, friends, and members of the local LGBTQ+ community. Public records and reporting identify Brandi as a Black transgender woman who had come out to family members in the years before her death. Community groups and remembrance projects included her among those honored during Transgender Day of Remembrance, reflecting the compassion and solidarity shown by neighbors and advocates after her death.

Though formal personal details available in the public record are limited, reporting and memorial lists consistently note Brandi’s place in the Cleveland community and the concern her loss inspired among local organizations working for the safety and dignity of transgender people. Local vigils and remembrance events in the months and years after October 2016 cited Brandi alongside other community members lost to violence, and advocates called for accurate, respectful reporting and better protections for transgender people of color.

The public record documents that Brandi was found deceased on October 8, 2016 in Cleveland; the Cuyahoga County medical examiner later ruled the death a homicide. Those facts are part of the documented record, but they do not define the whole of who Brandi was. Family members and community memorials asked media and the public to recognize her identity and to remember her as a real person whose life had meaning to others.

Because no family-published obituary or funeral-home notice matching her name and the exact date of death could be located in established obituary archives, this remembrance embraces the verified facts available while centering Brandi’s humanity. She is remembered here with respect and care, and with the hope that greater awareness and protection for transgender people — especially transgender women of color — will be part of her legacy.

If family members or friends wish to share additional personal remembrances, photographs, or details for a fuller memorial, those contributions would help honor Brandi’s life beyond what is recorded in public reports.