Nadia Cabezas, known to many in the community as Kitty Kastro, hostess of the Tranny Talk public access show, died Monday, March 5 after she was struck by a car on a highway in Porter County, Indiana. She was 40.

Her partner, Dina Boyer, said that Ms. Cabezas was traveling in a two-car caravan with her mother en route to San Francisco and communicating via walkie-talkies. They were apparently having trouble communicating and both vehicles pulled to the side of the highway. Ms. Cabezas was speaking with the driver of the second vehicle when she was hit by another vehicle. An article about the accident at www.nwi.com, an Indiana publication, referred to Ms. Cabezas, who was openly transgender, using male pronouns, but Boyer said that the coroner and people at a funeral home there were respectful of Ms. Cabezas. Boyer did not make the trip back east and had stayed in the Bay Area.

Ms. Cabezas and Boyer had produced the Tranny Talk show on San Francisco public access channel 29 since 1998. The show was "for, by, and about transsexuals," Boyer told the Bay Area Reporter Wednesday morning.

"She was my partner, my roommate, my best friend," Boyer said.

Angie Reid said that Ms. Cabezas was her best friend for 15 years.

"She will be really missed. She fought for rights of everybody," Reid said.

Tomi Kolarich worked with Ms. Cabezas and had known her for 10 years. Kolarich said, "She was the most hysterically outgoing person who opened people's eyes about how wonderful a transgender person could be. She was an 'it' girl."

Boyer said that Ms. Cabezas's wishes were that she be cremated. Plans are being made for a local memorial.