A trans teenager was shot and killed by her own father in Georgia, United States, in what has been described as a “horrific tragedy”.

Kathryn “Katie” Newhouse, 19, was killed on 19 March, according to officers at Cherokee County Police who found both her and her father, Howard Newhouse, 57, dead in their home.

According to Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, who wrote a blog post about Newhouse’s death, the teen was a “Minecraft and UberSpire enthusiast, an advocate for trans rights” and “had a bright smile”.

The blog post continued: “A native of Illinois, Kathryn was most recently living with her family in Canton, Georgia. 

“Kathryn was a Minecraft and UberSpire enthusiast, an advocate for trans rights, had a bright smile, enjoyed changing up her hairstyles, and attentive to world events.”

“She enjoyed hiking and sightseeing. She was proud of her AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander] heritage; she was of Filipino heritage…

“Kathryn’s death is a horrific tragedy and she deserves to still be here with us.”

Newhouse’s brother Chris explained to CBS46 news that his sister was autistic and had lived with mental health issues.

“A tragic culmination of all of these different mental health issues that kind of compounded and led to such a, escalated to a situation that – it shouldn’t have happened, but it happened,” he said.

At least six other trans, non-binary and gender-conforming people have been violently killed in the US in 2022 so far, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which has been monitoring the wave of brutality since 2013.

It comes after last year’s record-breaking death tally of at least 57, many of them Black trans women. The record continues to climb even months after the year’s end, as more victims’ deaths are discovered by grassroots activists combing through local news reports and talking to relatives.

HRC said in a statement: “HRC works to shed light on this epidemic of violence in order to ensure victims’ lives are remembered with dignity, and to work to end the stigma that so many trans and gender non-conforming people face…

“While the details of these cases differ, it is clear that fatal violence disproportionately affects transgender women of colour – particularly Black transgender women – and that the intersections of racism, sexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia and unchecked access to guns conspire to deprive them of employment, housing, healthcare and other necessities.”