That is right 44%
A report released in July by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAPV) shows transgender women make up 44 percent of all LGBTQ murder victims. The study also reported a troubling 13 percent rise in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes in 2010.
And we know organizations such as NOM and AFA have been getting more and more media time in that period.
Even these numbers might underestimate the real frequency of such attacks, says activist Earline Budd, founder of the advocacy organization Transgender Health Empowerment Inc. She told The Washington Post:
There is constant violence that goes unreported. Many of the transgender folks who come here say they don’t feel comfortable reporting an assault because they think they’re not going to be seen as a victim, but as a person who brought on the attack.
The five lesbians that were unable to get the police in D.C. to take them seriously was not an anomaly.
Indeed, the NCAPV study [PDF] found that over half of survivors did not report the event to the police. Transgender women were the least likely to report an attack. Of those who did go to the police, over 60 percent said authorities were “indifferent, abusive or deterrent.” This response was most common among transgender people of color–those most likely to be victim to a crime.
POLICE RESPONSE
50.1% of survivors did not report to the police. Transgender women were the least likely to report to police. 25.4% of transgender women did not make a report, compared to 19.1% of non-transgender women and 20.9% of non-transgender men.
Police were less likely to classify hate violence against LGBTQH people of color as hate crimes: Police denied bias classification5 to 25% of people of color survivors and victims as compared to 6% for white survivors and victims who reported an incident to the police.
61% of survivors experienced indifferent, abusive or deterrent police attitudes: Within known reports of police attitudes, survivors reported 38.4% of police attitudes as indifferent, 17.1% as abusive (including verbal and physical abuse), and 5% as deterrent. 39.5% of survivors experienced courteous police attitudes.
Transgender people of color reported higher rates of indifferent police attitudes. 48.3% of transgender people of color reported that police attitudes were indifferent, compared to 38% for overall survivors. Only 7.7% of non-transgender and white survivors experienced indifferent attitudes.
Police arrested offenders in 22% of incidents. For survivors who reported to the police, officers filed complaints without making arrests for 53% of the incidents, officers arrested suspected offenders for 22% of incidents, officers refused complaints for 17% of incidents, and officers arrested the survivor for 8% of incidents.
Police were more likely to arrest offenders when survivors were gay non-transgender men. People who identified as gay, largely gay non-transgender men, made up 69% of the total amount of people whose offender was arrested.
This is shameful.