Homicides targeting LGBTQ and HIV-positive people rose by 11% in the US last year, making 2014 the deadliest year for people in those communities since 2012, a new report has shown.
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) published its comprehensive report on hate violence experienced by LGBTQ people in the last year. While the report shows that non-lethal attacks against LGBTQ and HIV-positive people has decreased, transgender women of color were still found to be at high risk of murder.
The report, which drew from data across 14 states, comes after a transgender woman was thrown on to subway tracks in New York City, the same week Caitlyn Jenner introduced her new identity as a transgender woman to the world, to a largely positive reception.
“This year, the report reconfirms some of the trends we’ve seen for multiple years and that includes a high number of homicides,” Chai Jindasurat, co-director of community organizing and public advocacy told the Guardian.
“Homicides against LGBT people remain high with transgender people of color bearing the brunt of it,” he said.
There were 20 homicides last year, according to NCAVP’s data, with 80% being people of color and more than half being transgender women.
So far in 2015, there have been eight confirmed killings of transgender women of color. The FBI just began documenting hate crimes towards transgender people for the first time in 2014, thoughthe NCAVP called the FBI’s numbers “incredibly low”.
According to the NCAVP, the decrease in non-lethal attacks reported by police doesn’t mean the violence is necessarily going down. Rather, police are not labeling crimes as bias-motivated.
The report found that just 6% of hate violence being reported to police is being labeled as such.
“With biased crimes, it seems like pulling teeth to get them to check that extra box in the paperwork,” said Justin Shaw, executive director of the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project, a partner organization of the study, said last year, after the murder Dionte Greene, a young gay black man in Kansas City, Missouri.
“We hear so many incidents that happen and get labeled simple assault when there is an obvious hate component – it feels as if we are stuck in a paperwork cycle with people’s lives.”
Overall, 54% of LGBTQ people reported violence to police when it occurred, according to the report, a nine-point increase from 2014. They were also 2.4 times more likely than any other group to experience violence from the police when reporting.
“Reports to police increased in 2014, but that is not surprising in a year where homicides and severity of violence are high, situations in which police are intervening or being called to intervene,” said Lynne Sprague from Survivors Organizing for Liberation (formerly the Colorado Anti-Violence Program). “With this report, we are calling for an end to the profiling, police violence, and misconduct that happens when LGBTQ and HIV-affected survivors do report.”
NCAVP’s 2014 hate violence report documented 1,359 incidents of anti-LGBTQ violence in 2014 – a 32% decrease from the 2,001 total incidents reported in 2013.
The network has been reporting on violence targeting LGBTQ and HIV-positive people since 1989, and while many may see this decrease assomething to celebrate, NCAVP sees the opposite.
“This decrease should not be an indication that anti-LGBTQ hate violence is declining,” said Jindasurat. “In fact it should be a call to action for policymakers, funders, and service providers to increase funding, legislation, public awareness and outreach that encourages reporting of hate violence incidents and promotes safety for LGBTQ and HIV-affected.”
“I think that is why this report is important, because we know that a lot of progress has happened and we are very happy with the culture change happening in the country,” Jindasurat said. “But it is still a deadly risk to be LGBTQ.”
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