From a recent report out of UCLA entitled: Comparison of Hate Crimes Rates Across Protected and Unprotected Groups ( by Rebecca Stotzer, Public Policy Research Fellow at the Williams Institute)
Current proposed legislation would change certain existing federal hate crime laws to add sexual orientation and gender identity as protected categories. Sexual orientation and gender identity are important categories for inclusion in federal law because members of these groups are just as likely to be victimized as members of other groups that are already covered, such as those based on race, religion, or national origin. A close analysis of hate crime rates demonstrates that groups that are already covered by hate crime laws, such as African Americans, Muslims, and Jews, report similar rates of hate crime victimization as lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, who are not currently federally protected. On average:
• 8 in 100,000 African Americans report being the victim of hate crime
• 12 in 100,000 Muslims report being the victim of hate crime
• 15 in 100,000 Jews report the victim of hate crime
• 13 in 100,000 gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals report being the victim of hate crime
Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin has written about how:
“Many anti-gay activists point to the FBI’s Hate Crime Statistics to claim that gays and lesbians are not “oppressed” compared to anybody else. ”
He discusses the glaring faults in the collection process. But what is enlightening about this new report is found when you look beyond the raw numbers:
The FBI’s raw counts of hate crimes do not take into account the size of the populations covered. For example, racial and ethnic minorities account for about 30% of the total population of the United States, but the estimated population that identifies as gay, lesbian, or bisexual is only about 4%. Therefore, calculating proportional rates of possible victimization provides another important perspective for comparing hate crimes across groups.
And of the transgender population:
“Despite issues of underreporting from law enforcement agencies, some additional data suggest that hate crimes against transgender people are a significant problem. Community organizations and other interested groups have been tracking hate crimes against transgender people for several years. In particular, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) includes transgender people in their collection of hate crime data against sexual minorities. When examining reports on 14 major cities, 5 states, and one multi-state region since 1997, the NCAVP reports an average of 213 hate crimes per year against transgender people. In 2004, the NCAVP reported the highest number of hate crimes against transgender people: 321 hate crimes. Nationally, this level of violence is comparable to the level of violence perpetrated against Muslims since 2002. Thus, the inclusion of gender identity in the categories reported in the Uniform Crime Reports and in the new National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) system would allow for more tracking of this serious problem.”
Because transgender people aren’t even included in the collection of hate crimes of statistics, collection of data is fuzzy at best. But even with the fuzzy numbers, comparing the hate crimes with Muslims and trangender people is very telling. Since 9/11 many Americans see Muslim Americans as terrorists. It makes you wonder what the numbers would look like if the collection of data on transgender people were obtained in the same way as it is with race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.
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Related posts:
[...] if so, then the numbers of attacks on, and murders of, LGBT people can only increase. I have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered? Deep [...]
Someone else posted that trans ppl have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered, this makes me sick. And to be honest the thing that makes my stomach turn is that I know how much my community, the gay and lesbian community, ignores the trans community. On behalf of the L&G I’m sorry that many of us for get the “T” in LGBT!
Someone else posted that trans ppl have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered, this makes me sick. And to be honest the thing that makes my stomach turn is that I know how much my community, the gay and lesbian community, ignores the trans community. On behalf of the L&G I’m sorry that many of us for get the “T” in LGBT!
Comment by Lyssa
2007-08-19 21:31:33
We had like a 1:650+/- chance of being killed. Joy.
Actually, according to a study by the Harvey Milk Institute, we have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered. That is, if you are a woman who is visibly trans.
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So, what are the chances for men who are visibly trans? Forget that we are in the mix too?
I very strongly believe that Transgender should be a seperate stat from the sexual orientation clumps. With the current passive collection of crime stats I am constantly in conflict with my professional superiors in regards to anti-Trans violence. And the per capita needs to be expressed too. 10 out of 10,000 is sure a higher percenage than 10 out of 100,000.
But then I am Trans, Disabled, and a Religious minority identified, all of which have made me a target at one time.
We had like a 1:650+/- chance of being killed. Joy.
Actually, according to a study by the Harvey Milk Institute, we have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered. That is, if you are a woman who is visibly trans.
We had like a 1:650+/- chance of being killed. Joy.
Actually, according to a study by the Harvey Milk Institute, we have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered. That is, if you are a woman who is visibly trans.
The Anti-gay activists don’t believe that LGBT people are any more persecuted than anyone else because they are also anti-Muslim, Jewish, and anyone who isn’t of their race. They’re equal-opportunity haters who want the freedom to attack whomever they want. If you take away the queers, they’ll have to turn on old people or torture puppies or look into themselves and deal with the daemons that cause them to turn their hurt outward onto others. I think I told you about taking the federal murder rate statistics and dividing those into the total number of African Americans, White Americans (both gleaned from Census 2000), and compared those to the number of transgender people (or those the attackers thought to be transgender) killed in 2000 (as reported on the Remembering our dead website) and the extrapolated number of transgender people (from the best guesses of numbers of transsexual, transvestites, crossdressers and others – so it’s admittedly very rough). We had like a 1:650+/- chance of being killed. Joy.
The Anti-gay activists don’t believe that LGBT people are any more persecuted than anyone else because they are also anti-Muslim, Jewish, and anyone who isn’t of their race. They’re equal-opportunity haters who want the freedom to attack whomever they want. If you take away the queers, they’ll have to turn on old people or torture puppies or look into themselves and deal with the daemons that cause them to turn their hurt outward onto others. I think I told you about taking the federal murder rate statistics and dividing those into the total number of African Americans, White Americans (both gleaned from Census 2000), and compared those to the number of transgender people (or those the attackers thought to be transgender) killed in 2000 (as reported on the Remembering our dead website) and the extrapolated number of transgender people (from the best guesses of numbers of transsexual, transvestites, crossdressers and others – so it’s admittedly very rough). We had like a 1:650+/- chance of being killed. Joy.
Comment by Lyssa
2007-08-19 21:31:33
We had like a 1:650+/- chance of being killed. Joy.
Actually, according to a study by the Harvey Milk Institute, we have a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered. That is, if you are a woman who is visibly trans.
>
>
So, what are the chances for men who are visibly trans? Forget that we are in the mix too?
I very strongly believe that Transgender should be a seperate stat from the sexual orientation clumps. With the current passive collection of crime stats I am constantly in conflict with my professional superiors in regards to anti-Trans violence. And the per capita needs to be expressed too. 10 out of 10,000 is sure a higher percenage than 10 out of 100,000.
But then I am Trans, Disabled, and a Religious minority identified, all of which have made me a target at one time.