On 20th November each year, we remember the victims who lost their lives to transgender hate crime. The Transgender Murder Monitoring Project releases a report containing the number of trans people killed and how they were killed each year in the 12 months between 1st October and 30th September.
This year the report stated that 369 trans, non-binary, and gender – variant people were killed between 1st October 2017 and 30th September 2018. Out of these 369 murder victims, 28 of them were teenagers with the youngest being just 16.
This Transgender Day of Remembrance shows that 43 more trans people were murdered in 2018 than 2017.
What else do we know about this year’s murder victims? Most of the victims were transgender women of colour. 62% of them were sex workers, 5 of them were beheaded, 9 were stoned to death, and the rest were beaten to death, or shot.
In terms of countries, Brazil comes out with the highest number of deaths once again with a total of 167 murders. Mexico saw 71 trans people murdered, the USA saw 28 (an increase from the 25 who were killed last year), and other murder reports have come from Pakistan, Columbia, France, and the UK.
Unfortunately, these statistics are an incredibly small amount of what is thought to be the actual number of deaths. For example, there are many countries who don’t recognise trans people and therefore wont record their deaths as a hate crime. Other countries simply won’t or are unable to provide statistics. The highest numbers have been found in countries where there is a strong trans movement that carries out professional monitoring. As Lukas from Transrespect vs. Transphobia Worldwide says; “We cannot estimate a number, but indeed what we can do is estimate a small fraction.”
This year, the UK had 1 reported victim. She was Naomi Hersi, 36, from London who was killed by a man she met online on 18th May 2018.
You can read the full list online, although I must warn you it is not an easy read. There is content some readers may find distressing. https://transrespect.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/TvT_TMM_TDoR2018_Namelist_EN.pdf
