Transgender people and racial minorities were twice as likely in 2010 to experience hate-related violence and discrimination than their non-transgender white peers, according to a new report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP).
The coalition, which connects local and regional anti-violence projects across the United States, released a report this month titled "Hate Violence against the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-Affected (LGBTQH) Communities in the U.S. in 2010."
The report—which collected data from 15 states and 850 hate-crime survivors—found that reports of hate violence increased by 13 percent from 2009 to 2010, while anti-LGBTQH murders were up by 23 percent, jumping from 22 to 27 reported murders last year.
While the higher numbers could possibly be attributed to an increase in hate crime reporting (as opposed to an increase in actual hate crimes), some very clear patterns emerged in the data. Perhaps most striking is the breakdown of victim demographics: LGBTQH people of color made up 70 percent of hate-crime murder victims, while transgender women accounted for 44 percent.
"These murders clearly reveal the continuing and devastating impact of pervasive transphobia and racism in the United States," said Lisa Gilmore, director of education and victim advocacy at the Center on Halsted. "Transgender women and people of color are disproportionately targeted for the most severe forms of hate-motivated violence, [which are] most frequently perpetrated by white, non-transgender men."
Gilmore, who contributed to the report, spoke July 12 at a press conference sponsored by the NCAVP. Others who spoke included Ejeris Dixon of the New York City Anti-Violence Project; Maria Carolina Morales from the Community United Against Violence (CUAV) group in San Francisco; Sandhya Luther of the Colorado Anti-Violence Program in Denver, Colorado; and Jake Finney from the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center.
"Transgender survivors—the majority of whom are people of color—experienced higher rates of serious injuries, yet were among those least likely to receive medical attention," Finney said. He cited a lack of trans-friendly healthcare providers, the high cost of health insurance and indifference from police as major deterrents to reporting hate crimes.
More than half of the 850 hate-crime survivors interviewed for the 2010 NCAVP report did not report their incidents to the police. In addition, 61 percent of survivors cited indifferent, abusive or deterrent police attitudes.
"Police are typically not trained to identify whether crimes are bias-related," Finney said. He referenced a highly publicized 2010 case in which a transgender student at Cal State Long Beach was attacked in a campus bathroom. Assailants carved the word "it" into the student's chest, but police failed to identify the incident as a hate crime until local activists involved the FBI.
"LGBTQH survivors… are often re-traumatized by medical personnel and law enforcement, and have recorded both verbal and physical abuse," Morales said. "That creates a climate [where] they're less likely to access medical or legal support in the wake of violence."
Complicating matters further are hate-crime statutes. Several states, including Indiana, simply don't have such statutes, making it impossible to report or track hate-related violence in large parts of the country. The South is particularly underrepresented. The NCAVP report was only able to pull data from 17 organizations across 15 states.
According to the report, 76 percent of people who committed hate crimes in 2010 were non-transgender men, and 53 percent of all reported violence occurred in private residences or on the street.
Dixon said there were typically more hate crimes during Pride month and election years. "One thing that we've seen over several elections is the way that LGBT issues are used as a wedge issue to polarize or even encourage people who have anti-LGBTQ sentiments to get out to the polls," she said.
Dixon stressed the importance of public officials, whether politicians or celebrities, speaking out against such behavior. "[We need to] show people that anti-LGBT bias is not tolerated and not okay, and it is actually linked to anti-LGBT violence," she said. "There is a connection between a systematic approval of homophobia and transphobia that is at the root of us increasing safety and decreasing violence against LGBT communities."
