Did you know that there’s an “epidemic of violence” and murder against transgender people in the US that’s happening because you think sports should be sex-segregated?
At least, that’s the latest story coming out of far-left activist groups and being uncritically parroted by mainstream media outlets. But the reality is far more complicated than this cynical partisan narrative.
The spin stems from a new report by the Human Rights Campaign, a Democratic Party activist group that falsely purports to be an LGBT rights organization. The report, titled “An Epidemic of Violence 2022: Fatal Violence Against Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in the United States in 2022,” documents the unquestionably tragic deaths of 32 Americans. But it goes further than that, making the claim that the US is experiencing a unique epidemic of anti-trans murders and tying culpability for these murders to a wide variety of common political, partisan issues.
“Fatal violence against transgender and gender non-conforming people is the tragic result of a society that devalues our lives,” remarked Human Rights Campaign senior vice president Jay Brown.
Brown went on to directly pin some of the blame for the murders documented in the report on specific political/policy issues such as segregating sports by birth sex, allowing free speech—including “anti-trans” speech— on social media, and “transphobic” media coverage.
Brown goes so far as to say that those who advocate for these political positions “send a message that trans lives aren’t valuable” and “put our community and our allies at serious risk.”
The 32 murders documented in the report were “killed in an epidemic of violence threatening our community,” according to HRC’s Tori Cooper.
This narrative was uncritically parroted by mainstream media outlets like Axios and ABC News.
But it’s deeply flawed.
Report: At least 32 trans people killed in the U.S. in 2022 https://t.co/7luwv0EtKw
— Axios (@axios) November 17, 2022
At least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the U.S. in 2022, the Human Rights Campaign announces. https://t.co/dBqxaQm8Ue
— ABC News (@ABC) November 16, 2022
For one, it’s not at all clear that these murders actually constitute an “epidemic” of anti-trans hate crimes—or that the trans murder rate is even higher than the average murder rate in general. And secondly, the attempt to tie these murders to a whole host of unrelated partisan policy issues is deeply cynical and unfair.
We should start with some unequivocal disclaimers. Any murder is a tragedy, and a transgender American’s life is every bit as valuable as anyone else’s. My heart goes out to them and their families. But the statistics simply do not support the idea that they’re being murdered more regularly than everyone else.
The general US murder rate was 6 per 100,000 in 2021. The HRC’s reported total of 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people killed in 2022 is relative to an estimated transgender population of 1.6 million*. That comes out to about 2 per 100,000.
Approved ~ FS
