Nobody asked the 2,977 people killed on 11 September 2001 whether they were gay, lesbian, bisexual or trans. No official register recorded it, and certainly no coroner's form had a box for it. What we know about the queer people who died that day we know because someone who loved them chose to say so, usually into a hostile silence, and often at some cost.
That is why the list below is not a count. It really is a record of who was spoken for.
The names we know
Renee Barrett-Arjune, 41, a compensation accountant at Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower. She escaped the building with critical burns and died in hospital in October 2001. A member of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, she is survived by her partner Enez Cooper and her son Eddie.
Graham Andrew Berkeley, 37, born in England in 1964, a classical violinist and opera lover who became director of e-commerce solutions at Compuware. He had waited ten years for his green card and received it in June 2001. He was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175. His name is carved in the September 11 Memorial Garden in Grosvenor Square, London.
Mark Bingham, 31, a public relations executive who ran his own agency and played for the San Francisco Fog rugby club. He was one of the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 who moved on the cockpit before the aircraft came down in a Pennsylvania field. He is survived by his partner Paul Holm and, until her death in 2020, by his mother Alice Hoagland, who spent nineteen years campaigning in his name.
Pamela Boyce, 43, assistant vice president of accounting at Carr Futures, 92nd floor of the North Tower. Her partner was Catherine Anello.
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