Thursday, March 02, 2017

A Sad Week

The level of hate crimes have been ratcheting up and it has taken a toll on us with more trans women being killed this year, it sadly looks like it will be a record breaking year for us.
Four Transgender Murders in a Week "Alarming Trend"
SPLC
By Bill Morlin
March 1, 2017

In the past week, four transgender black women have been murdered in the United States — a trend that’s alarming civil rights and anti-violence advocates.

The New York City Anti-Violence Project, which tracks transgender crimes, says there have been seven murders of transgender people so far this year, well above the corresponding number last year.

The Anti-Violence Project documented the homicides of 23 transgender and gender nonconforming people in 2016, the highest ever recorded by the coalition.

“As we face an administration which devalues the safety and rights of transgender people and people of color, we must work tirelessly to support transgender friends, family, and community members,” NCAVP manager Emily Waters said in a statement.

Three of the most-recent homicides occurred in Louisiana, two in New Orleans.
[…]
Because Ciara McElveen and Chyna Doll Dupree were killed in Louisiana, a state with hate crime laws that do not offer protections for gender identity, it is unlikely the charge will be pursued without federal support for the investigation. Keke Collier’s murder is the only one of the six carried out in a state with hate crime laws that protect transgender people.

In previous years, those not covered by state hate crimes laws could have placed some hope in the federal government under the Matthew Shephard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Developed in the wake of the brutal 1998 murders of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man from Wyoming, and James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old African-African man, the act was used to prosecute an anti-transgender hate crime for the first time in 2016.
Let’s see if Attorney General Sessions will enforce the law.

Somehow I don’t think he will, I think that we will be left out in the cold.

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