In 2014, professional basketball player Reggie Bullock’s sister, Mia Henderson, was stabbed and killed in Baltimore. Mia became one of the many black transgender women who have been murdered in our country every year. For Bullock the loss was brutal, made more painful by the fact that his sister had never seen him play any basketball games because, in his words, "I always thought about what my teammates would think or what people would think. That was probably one of the stupidest things, but I just didn’t know so much about [being transgender], and I wasn’t as comfortable with it.”
Bullock wore this “Equality” sneaker with his sister's name to bring awareness last February in Atlanta. He continues to write Mia’s name on all his sneakers.
His sister’s death changed him. He says he didn’t know much of anything about the transgender community and had not realized the high levels of violence transgender women face. He hadn’t realized the lack of justice, something that was driven home intimately when the man accused of killing Henderson, despite his DNA being found under her long fingernails, was acquitted.
But in the wake of tragedy, Bullock has become a fierce proponent of LGBTQ rights. He’s hosted NBA Pride Night meet and greets and worn memorial gear that was sold to charities in Mia Henderson’s name. He’s tattooed the letters “LGBT” with his sister’s name onto his body and made sure to reach out as he did recently, to a young transgender child from Texas named Kai.
As Bullock told the Chicago Tribune, “I want to stand up for the people who have lost people within that community over tragic murders,” Bullock said. “I just want to let them know that as a straight person, I am not within that community, but I see y’all as people and I see y’all as people that I love.”
In a video (you can watch below), promoted by the Detroit Pistons organization last year, Bullock is shown meeting with GLAAD and Athlete Ally to talk about how he helps the community his sister was a part of. "Anything that y'all can put my face on or use me for—parades or stuff like that—I'm willing to do it.”
Bullock says that while he hadn’t spoken to Mia in a little time, having just begun his NBA career that year, he remembers that the last words he said to her were “I love you too.” Bullock isn’t letting that love die, he’s just directing it to help as much as he can, in the memory of his sister.
