WASHINGTON — A new report released yesterday by the Human Rights Campaign details the violence against the U.S. transgender community.
The report, A National Epidemic: Fatal Anti-Transgender Violence in America in 2018, stated that 22 transgender people have been killed in the U.S. in 2018. More than 80% of those killed were people of color, two-thirds were under the age of 35 and 55% were in the South.
The report detailed the lives of the transgender people, all but one women, who have been killed in 2018 and how society’s attitude towards transgender people affect their health and safe.
Since 2013, the report noted, there have been 128 people killed in anti-transgender violence. More than 80% were people of color and black transgender women of color accounted for 69% of those killed. And almost 9 out of 10 people killed were transgender women. And while nearly half of those killed since 2013 were in the South, the Cleveland metro area accounted for the second largest number of deaths in one location.
“On Transgender Day of Remembrance, we join together to mourn the lives lost to hate and violence this past year and rededicate ourselves to the urgent action that this epidemic requires,” said HRC President Chad Griffin in statement about the report’s release. “From anti-trans employment and housing discrimination to systemic racism, we must recognize the intersecting factors that influence, motivate and embolden the violence that plagues so many within the transgender community — particularly Black and Latina transgender women. White, cisgender men like me have a unique responsibility to support our transgender siblings in combating this violence, and join fully in the work to achieve equality for every person in the LGBTQ community.”
The full report can be read and downloaded here.