Violence Against Transgender People Has Gotten Worse

2017 has been a particularly deadly year for trans individuals, according to two new reports.
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Fatal violence against transgender individuals has increased in recent years, reaching a record high in 2017, according to two new reports.

At least 25 transgender people have been killed in violent crimes in the United States this year, making it the deadliest year for the trans community in recent years, according to a new report released by LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

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Human Rights Campaign

The report, released ahead of Monday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, found that 84 percent of trans victims of fatal violence in 2017 were people of color; 80 percent were trans women, and more than 75 percent were under the age of 35.

More than half of the deaths occurred in the South, and the majority of those killed were victims of gun violence. Four of the cases HRC recorded involved altercations with police.

“The epidemic of violence against transgender people is an urgent crisis that demands the nation’s immediate attention,” Chad Griffin, HRC’s president, said in a statement.

Another report, released by the Trans Murder Monitoring research project, found that there were 325 cases of reported killings of trans and gender non-conforming people between Oct. 1, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2017. According to TMM, there were 30 more victims in that time frame than in previous dates recorded.

The majority of the deaths TMM recorded occurred in Brazil (171), Mexico (56), and the U.S. (25). Since it began recording transgender victims of violence in 2008, TMM has recorded a total of 2,609 reported cases across 71 countries.

HRC has recorded more than 100 trans victims of fatal violence since 2013, based on media and police reports. The organization estimates that their research likely undercounts the number of deaths.

“Some victims’ deaths may go unreported, while others may not be
identified as transgender in the media, often because authorities, journalists and/or family members refuse to acknowledge their gender identity,” the report states.

The 25 victims in 2017 identified in the report included three transgender women of color ― Chyna Gibson, Ciara McElveen and Jaquarrius Holland ― who were killed in Louisiana in the month of February.

The youngest victims ― Ava Le’Ray Barrin and Ally Steinfeld ― were just 17 years old.

None of the cases included in HRC’s report were classified as hate crimes, but the organization noted that transgender individuals are disproportionately affected by systemic bias and occupy a vulnerable position in the U.S.

Just 17 states and the District of Columbia have hate crime laws covering sexual orientation and gender identity, according the Movement Advancement Project, a LGBTQ research group. Roughly a third of transgender people live in poverty, and an estimated 50 percent will experience violence by an intimate partner in their lifetimes.

In the past year, discrimination against transgender people has been reflected in several policy changes and announcements from the White House. In August, President Donald Trump proposed a ban on transgender individuals entering the military ― a proposal that was shortly thereafter blocked by a district court.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo in October reversing workplace protections for transgender employees on the basis of “religious freedom.”

“There is still so much to be done to combat transphobia across our country and around the world,” Griffin and Trans People of Color Coalition executive director Kylar W. Broadus wrote in an opening letter introducing HRC’s report. 

“Nowhere is that more evident than at the doorstep of the White House, where Donald Trump and Mike Pence have made discrimination against LGBTQ people, as well as so many others, a top priority,” they added.

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Before You Go

I Am Transgender
Penelope Ghartey(01 of25)
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Penelope Ghartey does a one-handed pushup at his home in Brooklyn, New York, on Dec. 13, 2016. Jodie Patterson's 3-year-old was brooding and angry until one day she asked her child what was wrong. Penelope, who was assigned female at birth, was upset "because everyone thinks I'm a girl," but he said he was really a boy. "I said, 'However you feel inside is fine,'" Patterson recalled from their home in Brooklyn. "And then Penelope looked at me and said, 'No, mama, I don't feel like a boy. I am a boy.'" Almost immediately, Patterson embraced the reality that Penelope was a transgender boy, and by age 5 he was going to school as a boy. Today, at age 9, Penelope is happy and healthy as a boy who loves karate and superheroes and decided to keep his birth name. (credit:Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
Kate Lynn Blatt(02 of25)
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Kate Lynn Blatt, a transgender woman, waves the U.S. flag outside her home in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, on May 25, 2016. Blatt once lived as a woman at home but went to work in a battery factory as a man -- a painful phase in her gender transition that would later propel her to the forefront of a constitutional battle for transgender rights in America. She decided to start over, interviewing as a woman for a new job with the outdoor equipment and apparel retail chain Cabela's Inc (CAB.N), landing the position, and finally leaving her life as a male behind. A six-year transition, starting from when she graduated high school, was finally over. "Oh my God, it was the most liberating thing I've ever experienced in my entire life," Blatt said in an interview in her hometown. "And then slam," she said, smacking a fist into her palm. "Employee discrimination." (credit:Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
Laverne Cox(03 of25)
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Actress Laverne Cox walks in a Donna Karan creation during a presentation of the Go Red for Women Red Dress collection during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 13, 2015. (credit:Lucas Jackson/Reuters)
Charlie Lowthian-Rickert(04 of25)
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Charlie Lowthian-Rickert, 10, who is transgender, is kissed by her father Chris on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Canada, on May 17, 2016, following a news conference announcing that Canada would introduce legislation to protect transgender people from discrimination and hate crimes. (credit:Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Joe Wong(05 of25)
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Joe Wong, 31, poses for a photograph at his apartment in Bangkok, Thailand, on April 3, 2015. The 31-year-old transgender man from Singapore underwent surgery to remove his breasts in 2007 and legally changed his name from Joleen to Joe. He had his uterus removed in 2009 and is legally recognized as a male. Wong is one of the many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Asia who faced abuse and violence from his family. To escape the violence and find acceptance, many LGBTQ people migrate abroad -- including Wong, who moved to Bangkok, where he works for the rights group Asia Pacific Transgender Network. (credit:Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)
Tiffany(06 of25)
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Tiffany, 19, who is transgender, shows a scar from a knife attack in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, on March 10, 2011. (credit:Edgard Garrido / Reuters)
Geraldine Roman(07 of25)
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Geraldine Roman, a transgender congressional candidate, is greeted by her supporters during a "Miting de Avance" (last political campaign rally) for the national election in Orani town, Bataan province, north of Manila in the Philippines on May 6, 2016. Roman won her seat in the Philippine parliament. (credit:Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)
Vonn Jensen(08 of25)
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Vonn Jensen, a non-binary trans person, presents creations from the AnaOno collection, a show modeled by members of the group #Cancerland, during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 12, 2017. Jensen aims to increase visibility and awareness around the LGBTQ community and cancer. (credit:Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
Chahat(09 of25)
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Chahat, a member of the transgender community, prepares for Shakeela's party in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Jan. 22, 2017. At a party, the guests' saris twirled as they danced to the music and fed each other pieces of cake, but armed police guarding the door indicated this was no normal carefree birthday gathering. The transgender revelers run the risk of violence in conservative Muslim Pakistan where they often work as dancers at weddings and other parties but are rarely allowed to hold their own celebrations. "It's the first time in a decade that we have openly hosted such a function," said Farzana Jan, a leader of Trans Action Pakistan, which estimates there are at least 500,000 transgender people in the country of 190 million. City authorities usually refuse permission for transgender parties, and police often raid them. (credit:Caren Firouz/Reuters)
Yiling(10 of25)
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Qian Jinfan, an 84-year-old transsexual who prefers to be addressed as "Yiling," holds up a photo taken at the age of 59, in the town of Foshan, Guangdong province, China, on July 6, 2012. Qian, who told Reuters that she always felt she was a woman and experimented with hormone cream, tablets and injections at the age of 60, is believed to be the oldest transsexual to live openly in China. The retired Chinese Communist Party official said she would not undergo gender affirmation surgery until it fully guaranteed her a female body that was complete with a woman's bodily functions. She admitted her days may be limited, but hopes that speaking to the media can help break down traditional assumptions and initiate discussions about transsexuals in society. About 2,000 people in China have undergone gender affirmation surgery and up to 400,000 could be considering it, according to a report in 2009 by state newspaper China Daily. (credit:Siu Chiu / Reuters)
Jenna Talackova(11 of25)
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Transgender contestant Jenna Talackova takes part in the Miss Universe Canada competition wearing her evening gown in Toronto on May 17, 2012. Talackova was originally disqualified from the Miss Universe Canada contest because she was not a "naturally born female." Talackova, who underwent gender affirmation surgery when she was 19, was then reinstated to the Canadian competition by the future President Donald Trump, who used to own the Miss Universe organization. (credit:Mark Blinch / Reuters)
Lulu(12 of25)
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Lulu, a transgender girl, reads a book in her room at home in Buenos Aires on July 25, 2013. The 6-year-old Argentine child, who was listed as a boy at birth, has been granted new identification papers by the Buenos Aires provincial government listing her as a girl. According to her mother Gabriela, Lulu chose the gender as soon as she first learned to speak. Gabriela said her child, named Manuel at birth, has insisted on being called Lulu since she was just 4 years old, according to local media. Argentina in 2012 instituted liberal rules on changing gender, allowing people to alter their gender on official documents without first having to receive a psychiatric diagnosis or surgery. (credit:Stringer/Reuters)
Tanya Walker(13 of25)
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Tanya Walker, a 53-year-old transgender woman, activist and advocate, gives an interview at her apartment in New York City on Sept. 7, 2016. Walker had lung cancer and was coughing up blood, but she said her emergency room doctor kept asking about her genitals. "It seemed like they weren't going to treat me unless I told them what genitals I had," Walker said about her 2013 experience in a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in New York. "I felt cornered." She experienced the stigma shared by many transgender people. The same rejection they confront at home and in society can often await them in the doctor's office, where many report being harassed, ridiculed or even assaulted. (credit:Reuters)
Renee Richards(14 of25)
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Renee Richards poses for a portrait at her home in Carmel, New York, on March 25, 2015. More than three decades after putting down her tennis racquet, Richards, 80, told Reuters that she was still astonished she'd possessed the moxie to join the women's professional tennis tour after living the first 34 years of her life as a man. The transgender pioneer, who was named Richard Raskind at birth, believes nothing could be tougher than what she endured in the 1970s. (credit:Mike Segar/Reuters)
Helena Vukovic(15 of25)
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Helena Vukovic, the first Serbian transgender veteran army officer, poses for a picture in Belgrade, Serbia, on Sept. 7, 2016. More than a year after she was sacked from Serbia's army for coming out as transgender, Vukovic finally received a passport, driving license, health and ID cards confirming her identity as a woman -- a small but important step forward for a deeply conservative country. In January 2015, the defense ministry forced the major out after two decades' service, saying her "psychiatric diagnosis" could harm the reputation of the military. Vukovic, who is in her mid-40s, has since undergone a series of gender confirmation operations. She has become a vocal supporter of the rights of sexual minorities in Serbia, a predominantly Orthodox Christian country where many are still reluctant to come out. (credit:Marko Djurica/Reuters)
Nada Chaiyajit(16 of25)
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Nada Chaiyajit, a 37-year-old Thai transgender activist, poses during an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation at a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, on Nov. 28, 2016. Two months after Chaiyajit completed her undergraduate studies, school officials told her 12 classmates -- all men -- that their graduation certificates were ready. But the University of Phayao in northern Thailand would not issue her documents because she submitted a photo in which she presents as a woman, even though her identity card says she is male. "They asked me, 'Can you take a new photo -- can you tie up your hair and wear a tie to make yourself look like a man?' I said no," she said. "If I tie my hair back and wear a tie, then it doesn't belong to me. This belongs to me," she said, gesturing at her body and holding up the contentious portrait of herself in a black and lavender graduation gown. She refused to dress as a man or to petition to dress as a woman on grounds of gender identity disorder, as many Thai transgender students have done. Instead, in a landmark case, she petitioned her school to issue her documents according to the gender identity she has chosen, on the basis of her rights rather than mental illness. (credit:Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)
Julio Yoaris Alvarez(17 of25)
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Julio Yoaris Alvarez adjusts his brassiere while getting dressed at his home in Havana, Cuba, on May 16, 2009. From an early age, Alvarez dreamed of having gender affirmation surgery and is currently awaiting his turn for one under the Cuban health care system. The surgery, like all other health care in Cuba, will be free of charge. (credit:Claudia Daut/Reuters)
Seema(18 of25)
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Seema, 33, displays a picture in which she's dressed as a woman at her residence in New Delhi, India, on May 16, 2012. Seema is transgender, one of hundreds of thousands in conservative India who are ostracized, often abused and forced into prostitution. (credit:Adnan1 Abidi/Reuters)
Carly Lehwald(19 of25)
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Carly Lehwald sits with her son Ben at her Chicago home on May 30, 2015. Carly is Ben's father, formerly known as Charlie, and is transitioning to life as a woman. Her story forms the basis for the reality television show "Becoming Us." (credit:Jim Young/Reuters)
(20 of25)
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Some of several dozen detained Pakistani transgender people watch from a police bus as another transgender woman and a man are taken to a courthouse to face charges in Peshawar on May 25, 2010. Everyone on the bus was later jailed. Pakistani police arrested what they said was an entire wedding party at a ceremony between a man and a transgender woman, accusing the pair of promoting homosexuality in the devoutly Muslim country. Almost 50 people were at the ceremony in the northwestern city of Peshawar when it was raided by police. (credit:Stringer Pakistan/Reuters)
Anna Grodzka(21 of25)
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Anna Grodzka, Poland's first transgender lawmaker, attends an introductory session of the Polish parliament for newly elected lawmakers in Warsaw on Oct. 24, 2011. (credit:Kacper Pempel/Reuters)
Naz Seenauth(22 of25)
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Naz Seenauth, a transgender man, poses in New York on Oct. 22, 2014. Seenauth's driver's license says he is male. His birth certificate says he is female. The mismatch, he says, is deeply frustrating. New York City, where Seenauth was born and raised, does not accept that he is a transgender man and will not amend his birth certificate, for now at least, even though his doctor will attest to his gender. (credit:Reuters)
Damian Jackson(23 of25)
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Damian Jackson (center), 51, shows family members his new documents after changing his officially registered gender from female to male at City Hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on July 1, 2014. Jackson was among the first to obtain new documents under a new law legalizing the registration of a transgender person's preferred gender in official state documents, including identity cards and passports. Under the previous law, a person had to face hormonal treatment, surgery or sterilization before any change in gender registration was allowed. (credit:Cris Toala Olivares/Reuters)
Audrey Mbugua(24 of25)
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Audrey Mbugua, 31, Kenya’s most famous transgender campaigner, poses for a photograph in her garden in Kiambu, outside the capital of Nairobi on March 31, 2015. Assigned male at birth in Kenya and given the name Andrew, she felt trapped in the wrong body and started dressing in women's clothes while at university, attracting ridicule and rejection. Transgender people are some of the most invisible in Africa where rigid gender stereotyping continues to stifle freedoms. Many are forced to hide their identity and live on the margins of society or risk being vilified as immoral and unchristian by the conservative majority. Facing one hurdle after another, Mbugua decided she had to take up the mantle of advocating for transgender rights to combat the ignorance and stigma blighting her life. (credit:Reuters Staff/Reuters)
Veronika Lee-Tillman(25 of25)
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Randy Dolphin and transgender activist Veronika Lee-Tillman are married at City Hall in San Francisco on June 28, 2013. San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr gave the bride away. (credit:Robert Galbraith/Reuters)