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July 2023
Volume 9 | Issue No. 72
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E
ven though Pride Month has come and gone, more work
is required to extend unadulterated equity to the queer
community. As a 2021 UCLA study reported, violence
against trans people is on the rise, with trans people being
four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims
of violent crime — a statistic which is often inaccurate,
as many trans people, especially trans people of color,
may be wary of interacting with law enforcement and
reporting the crime to the police.
As of the time of writing this article in early June, at
least 12 trans people have been violently killed this
year alone: Jasmine Mack, KC Johnson, Unique Banks,
Zachee Imanitwitaho, Maria Jose Rivera Rivera, Chashay
Henderson, Tortuguita, Tasiyah Woodland, Ashley Burton,
Koko Da Doll, Banko Brown, and Ashia Davis. Nearly all of
them are people of color, and the majority are Black trans
women.
Many people looking at these statistics may be tempted
to dismiss this violence as a product of the lives these
trans people "chose" to lead. A sense of moral superiority
accompanies these hand-waved explanations, which
are based on the insidious implication that all of the
contributing factors to a trans person's violent death
were not only within that person's control, but chosen for
themselves.
Here, the phrase "high-risk" and "lifestyle" are often
intentionally misused, wielded to reinforce these
assumptions. This overwhelming attitude that these deaths
are an unfortunate consequence of the "risky lifestyles
these people lead" is another way of reassuring everyone
that these deaths are not to be taken as canaries in the
genocide coal mine, but merely as cautionary tales of
what befalls those who dare to live in defiance of the
norm.
This narrative is designed to quash the outrage and
panic that ought to accompany revelations of rampant
violence. This narrative is designed to reframe these deaths
as merely part of the natural order of society — a sign that
society is functioning as intended.
It bears repeating: No violence should ever indicate that
society is working as intended.
This article from the Human Rights Watch, titled "I Just Try
to Make It Home Safe," reported: "Reports suggest that
bias-motivated crimes targeting transgender individuals
are increasing, and incidents when transgender people
narrowly escape violence, where transgender people
are reluctant to report violence to police for fear of
revictimization, or where law enforcement officers fail to
document and respond to violence mean that estimates
almost certainly undercount the scope and prevalence
of these crimes."
It is true that trans people, especially Black trans women,
endure disproportionately dangerous day-to-day lives.
Some data indicate that 41% of Black trans people
reported experiencing homelessness at some point in their
lives, that 34% reported a household income of less than
$10,000 per year, and that over 20% reported living with
HIV. Facing similarly disproportionate rates of employment,
education, and housing discrimination, it is flatly ridiculous
to imply that any of these conditions ought to be attributed
to "high-risk lifestyle choices" from trans people of color.
Circumstances aside, it should already be a red flag that
the focus in debates like these is on the role of the victims
rather than the people committing the violence. Fixating
on the demographic facing violence allows the people
actually responsible for that violence to go completely
unexamined, or worse, taken for granted and normalized.
Efforts to stop violence should focus at least as much, if not
more, on the attackers and murderers as on the targets
of their violence. Still, the target-focused, victim-blaming
paradigm holds sway even in many of the most socially-
liberal debate spaces.
"Reports suggest that bias-motivated crimes targeting transgender individuals
are increasing, and incidents when transgender people narrowly escape violence,
where transgender people are reluctant to report violence to police for fear of
revictimization, or where law enforcement officers fail to document and respond to
violence mean that estimates almost certainly undercount the scope and prevalence
of these crimes." - "I Just Try to Make It Home Safe" Human Rights Watch
