Tracy Single’s Creative Energy Could Have Taken Her Anywhere
Her love of dance, makeup, and fashion radiated from the inside out
This story is part of Know Their Names, a collection of articles illuminating and celebrating the lives of Black Trans women.
When Tracy Single took the floor at Houston’s Montrose Grace Place (MGP), an evening drop-in center for youth experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, she owned it. The 22-year-old would often stop in on weeknights and get down to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Simon Says” with her friends.
“She loved to dance, specifically twerking,” recalls Courtney Sellers, the executive director of MGP. “We spent a lot of time just dancing and cutting up together.”
Dancing was just one way Tracy, who also went by Tracy Williams, radiated energy. Her host of artistic and creative abilities, often demonstrated at MGP, showed how multifaceted she was. She poured her energy into makeup and fashion, styling her friends for drag and fashion shows. On Monday and Thursday nights, she would raid the center’s clothing and toiletry closets, putting together trendy outfits for herself and loved ones. Per MGP’s rules, each person has a limited number of clothing items they are allowed to take and only seven minutes to shop. Tracy was a master at the process and efficient with her time, experimenting with nontraditional ways to create fun new looks for herself and her friends.
“Nothing was off-limits for Tracy,” Courtney says. “One of the things that hurts the most about her death, for me, is just knowing that she’ll never get a chance to see where her creative energy and talents could have taken her.”
Tracy started dropping into MGP at the beginning of 2019 and quickly built a community there. Cultivating friendships to form her chosen family was important to Tracy. “She was funny, kind, confident, and loved by a lot of people,” Courtney says.
According to Black Trans activist Dee Dee Watters, many of Tracy’s siblings were dead and her remaining family seemed unsupportive of her decision to live her authentic life.
In the months prior to her death, Tracy was living with a friend on the west side of Houston, spending time with loved ones, accessing resources from various local community centers, and actively looking for a job. Courtney says after Tracy faced trouble at her last job over her transition, she began searching for workspaces that were more inclusive. According to Courtney, Tracy hoped to work in a creative field that would allow her to show off her skills in fashion and makeup.
“Tracy was so confident. She truly lived her life in a way that I wish I could live my own — without fear of being judged.”
Those hopes were soon dashed. In the early morning of July 30, an unidentified body was found in a Houston parking lot. As reported by the Houston Police Department, the body had numerous sharp force injuries. It took a week before the Houston Police’s LGBT liaison and Dee Dee could identify the victim as Tracy. While the identity of Tracy’s killer was at first a mystery, the police later arrested and charged 25-year-old Joshua Dominic Bourgeois, Tracy’s boyfriend, with her murder.
Tracy was cherished by so many people and several communities mourned her loss, across Houston and across the country. MGP has also set up a memorial for Tracy in the form of a saved space at the center’s biweekly youth nights.
“Tracy was so confident. I really admired that about her. She truly lived her life in a way that I wish I could live my own — without fear of being judged,” Courtney says. “What I really want people to understand is that Tracy lived her truth, and that’s so hard today.”
