Georgia’s prison system on Monday agreed to pay $2.2 million to the parents of a transgender inmate who hung herself in her cell in 2017.
The settlement came four years to the day since Jenna Mitchell, 25, died after being in a coma for two days before life support was withdrawn.
A lawsuit filed by Mitchell’s parents in 2019 said she had been approved for gender reassignment surgery but was being held at Valdosta State Prison, a men’s prison.
While at the prison, she had been in and out of solitary confinement for months. Before hanging herself on Dec. 4, 2017, she had been housed in solitary confinement for more than two weeks, according to the lawsuit.
When Mitchell was placed in solitary confinement, the prison staff told her she was “being moved to the compound for transgender inmates,” the suit said.
Mitchell’s mother had called the prison on Dec. 2 after receiving a letter from her daughter saying she was going to pull a “suicide stunt” at the prison. She took the threat seriously because Mitchell “had a history of mental illness, was suffering from gender identity issues, and had engaged in a pattern of suicidal and self-harming behavior,” the suit said.
Mitchell’s mother told the woman who answered the phone at the prison about the threat and asked that her daughter be put on suicide watch. The woman said Mitchell was already “in medical” for attempting suicide and that she was “okay,” the suit said.
The warden of the prison was made aware of the call, according to the lawsuit.
But Mitchell was placed back into solitary confinement, and on Dec. 4 told a corrections officer that she was about to hang herself. The officer didn’t wait with Mitchell or try to prevent her from hanging herself, but rather left to alert others about the threat, the suit said.
Mitchell hanged herself while alone. The suit said it took too long to cut her down because officers couldn’t find a cutting tool nearby and had to travel to and from the medical unit for scissors.
Following Mitchell’s death, according to the suit, the supervisor of the corrections officer who left Mitchell alone “prepared a false incident report to cover up” the officer’s conduct so that he and other staff members would avoid discipline, an investigation or a lawsuit.
LGBTQ youths who are also intersex — an umbrella term that describes those whose reproductive or sexual anatomy does not fit the typical definitions of “male” or “female” — have a higher risk of suicide when compared to LGBTQ youths who are not intersex, according to a new report.
But researchers say there is hope, because the data also show that one thing can help significantly reduce the risk: acceptance.
The Trevor Project, a national youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention group, released the research Friday in a report that explores the mental health and well-being of intersex LGBTQ youths.
It found that the intersex respondents face disproportionately high rates of mental health challenges. For example, 48 percent of LGBTQ intersex youths surveyed as part of the Trevor Project’s 2021 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health reported that they seriously considered suicide in the previous 12 months, compared to 41 percent of LGBTQ youths who are not intersex.
Nearly one-fifth (19 percent) of LGBTQ intersex youths reported that they had attempted suicide in the previous 12 months, compared to 14 percent of LGBTQ youths who are not intersex. That rate was even higher for younger LGBTQ intersex youths: Nearly 1 in 4 (24 percent) youths 13 to 17 years old reported having attempted suicide in the previous 12 months, compared to 14 percent of LGBTQ intersex youth ages 18 to 24.
“We already know that the rates of mental health challenges are higher for LGBTQ youth compared to cisgender, straight youth, so when we compare intersex youth to the already high rates among LGBTQ youth, we know that they’re increasingly high,” said Myeshia Price, a senior research scientist at the Trevor Project.
The research found that there are a few risk factors for poor mental health among LGBTQ intersex youths. For example, 18 percent reported having been subjected to conversion therapy, a discredited practice that seeks to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity, with 12 percent reporting that the efforts were aimed at changing their gender identities.
LGBTQ intersex youths who said someone had tried to persuade them to change their sexual orientations or gender identities reported more than twice the rate of previous-year suicide attempts (22 percent) compared to intersex youths who did not (9 percent).
The report noted, however, that the recommended “treatment” for intersex people often includes medical procedures and socialization from a young age that could be considered conversion therapy.
“For intersex people, this may happen in such a systemic way, involving every person in the youth’s life, and starting from birth, that intersex youth may not even be aware that it is happening,” the report says. “This may lead intersex youth to under-report their experiences with conversion therapy and other change efforts by adults in their lives.”
Price said part of the reason the Trevor Project focused the research on mental health is that intersex youths are often medicalized from birth and that as a result most of the available research focuses on how medical procedures affect them.
“I think it’s important to understand that intersex youth are so much more than their bodies,” Price said. “By understanding them as individuals and as people we believe that this report gives more attention to things that may be more important to them than the sort of medicalized approach to looking at who they are.”
The report found that other risk factors for poor mental health include discrimination, housing instability and food insecurity. More LGBTQ intersex youths reported having experienced discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identities (64 percent) in the previous year compared to LGBTQ youth who are not intersex (59 percent). Those who reported having experienced discrimination reported twice the rate of attempting suicide (22 percent) compared to LGBTQ intersex youth who had not experienced it (11 percent).
More LGBTQ intersex youths reported having faced food insecurities in the previous year and/or homelessness, including from being kicked out or having run away, when compared to LGBTQ youths who are not intersex. Those who reported food insecurities and/or homelessness reported nearly three times the rate of previous-year suicide attempts, at 30 percent and 34 percent, respectively, compared to those who did not report food insecurities or facing homelessness, at 12 percent and 10 percent.
The report recommends policies, both in schools and for government-issued identification, that are not built on the sex or gender binary of male and female, because both intersex and many transgender youths do not fit into those categories.
“We talk about gendered bathrooms and locker rooms and the sports-participation binary and documents that only allow for male or female sex or markers, and these are all sort of inherently excluding the reality that intersex people exist in the first place,” Price said. Sports policies that allow anyone to participate, gender-neutral bathrooms and inclusive sex-education curriculums that recognize intersex people signal to youths “that we see you, we know you’re here and we accept you for who you are,” Price said.
Price added that the report offers hope, because it found that acceptance and affirmation significantly reduce the risk of suicide for LGBTQ intersex youths. Those who had at least one parent who was accepting of their sexual orientations or gender identities had 55 percent and 45 percent lower odds, respectively, of having attempted suicide in the previous year. Transgender and nonbinary intersex youths whose pronouns were respected by all of the people they live with had 64 percent lower odds of reporting suicide attempts.
“The best thing that we could do for intersex youth is to be accepting and provide that protective and supportive environment for them,” she said.
Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine on Thursday criticized efforts to prevent transgender youth from accessing health care.
“Unfortunately, some have fought to prevent transgender youth from accessing the health care that they need,” she said in a speech she delivered at the opening of the Victory Fund’s 2021 International LGBTQ Leaders Conference that took place in-person at the JW Marriott in downtown D.C. “This is politics and this politics has no place in health care and public health and they defy the established standards of care written by medical experts.”
Levine was Pennsylvania’s Health Secretary until President Biden nominated her to become assistant secretary of health.
She became the first openly trans person confirmed by the U.S. Senate in March. Levine in October became a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service.
The conference will take place in-person and virtually through Sunday.
Sweden’s first female prime minister Magdalena Andersson has added the country’s first-ever trans minister to her new majority female government.
On Tuesday (30 November), on her second day as prime minister, Andersson announced her new government, including Lina Axelsson-Kihlbom as education minister.
Axelsson-Kihlbom, 51, is a former headteacher and lawyer who became known as “Superrektorn” (“Super Principal”) after she appeared on a documentary series in which she managed to turn around a failing school in one of Sweden’s most deprived areas.
The mother-of-two also published a book in 2015 titled Kommer du tycka om mig nu? (Will You Love Me Now?) in which she told the world for the first time that she was trans.
She received an outpouring of love and support from the public after her book was released, and said in an op-ed in 2018: “Trans people have always existed, they will always exist and we no longer feel ashamed. We are the new normal.”
Axelsson-Kihlbom has said she knew she was trans from the age of three, according to Aftonbladet, but didn’t have the language to describe it, leading her to feel completely alone.
She medically transitioned when she was 24 years old, but in an interview on the Swedish talkshow Skavlan, discussed the cruel requirement at the time that she be sterilised in order to gain legal recognition as a woman, a law that was ruled unconstitutional in 2013.
She said: “I had to undergo an operation where the state ensured that none of my unique gene set would ever be reproduced.
“I remember that there were tears but did not know if it was tears of pain or because I was so enormously humiliated.”
According to Bloomberg, one of prime minister Andersson’s priorities is reforming Sweden’s highly-privatised school system, and Axelsson-Kihlbom is the perfect person for the job.
The new trans education minister, who has been a member of Sweden’s School Commission since 2015, said at a press conference after her appointment that she would work to ban private profits being made from schools.
She said: “Society needs to take control over schools. Every student’s right to knowledge must be in focus, and not share price movements or religious beliefs.”
Magdalena Andersson, Sweden’s first female prime minister, had to resign on her first day in office
On Wednesday, Magdalena Andersson was elected Sweden’s first female prime minister, but hours later she resigned following the collapse of her coalition.
In a dispute over budget proposals, the country’s Green Party walked away from the coalition with Andersson’s Social Democratic Party, and so she was forced to step down.
On Monday, she was reappointed as prime minister after a second vote, and will lead the one-party government until an election next September.
An Iowa law that prohibits Medicaid coverage for sex reassignment surgeries for transgender residents violates state law and the state constitution, a judge ruled in a decision made public Monday.
Judge William Kelly ordered the Iowa Department of Human Services to provide coverage for sex reassignment surgeries when ordered to treat gender dysphoria, a psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. It often begins in childhood, and some people may not experience it until after puberty or much later, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
At least nine states across the U.S. explicitly exclude gender-affirming care in Medicaid coverage, while 24 states and Washington, D.C., explicitly include this type of care, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank. The remaining states have no explicit policy.
The ruling is a victory for Aiden Vasquez and Mika Covington, two Iowans represented by the ACLU of Iowa.
Kelly said state and federal courts in the past 16 years have found that gender identity discrimination is a form of sex discrimination which is prohibited under civil rights laws. He also found the law violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution.
It is not challenged in the record that surgical treatment for gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition and the surgery is recommended for Vasquez and Covington by medical professionals as necessary and effective, the judge said. He said Medicaid coverage is fundamental to ensure the availability of that treatment for economically disadvantaged Iowans.
“Once the medical community determined that surgery is medically necessary to treat this health issue, the government lost its rational basis to refuse to pay for the surgery,” Kelly said in a ruling signed on Friday but posted publicly with online court records on Monday. “The law appears to draw an arbitrary distinction. So, there is no plausible policy reason advanced by, or rationally related to, excluding transgender people from Medicaid reimbursement for medically necessary procedures.”
Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa, called the decision “a historic win for civil rights” in Iowa.
“It recognizes what we’ve long known, that transgender Iowans must not be discriminated against, and that they are protected by the Iowa Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, as well as by the Iowa Civil Rights Act,” Bettis Austen said.
The ACLU of Iowa filed a lawsuit in April against the state of Iowa challenging a 2019 law that allows Medicaid to deny payment for sex reassignment surgeries for transgender residents.
Vasquez and Covington initially sued in 2017 and a state court judge found the policy violated the Iowa Civil Rights Act and the Iowa Supreme Court in 2019 upheld that decision. The court concluded that Iowa’s Medicaid program may not categorically discriminate against transgender people seeking gender-affirming, medically necessary care.
Shortly after the court ruling, Republicans in the Iowa Legislature passed an amendment as part of a last-minute addition to a human services budget bill in response to the court’s ruling. That change stated that any government agency in Iowa may decline to use taxpayer money for “sex reassignment surgery” or “any other cosmetic reconstructive or plastic surgery procedure related to transsexualism, hermaphroditism, gender identity disorder, or body dysmorphic disorder.”
Vasquez and Covington, however, had to take their cases through the Department of Human Services system and apply for surgery, have it denied based on the new law and then again pursue a challenge in court. The Iowa DHS has since denied coverage to them. Vasquez is a transgender man who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2016 and Mika Covington is a transgender woman who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and began receiving hormone therapy in 2015.
Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the bill into law in May 2019, arguing it only narrowly clarifies that Iowa’s Civil Rights Act does not require taxpayer dollars to pay for sex reassignment and other similar surgeries.
Reynolds’ spokesman Alex Murphy said she is disappointed by the ruling “and disagrees with the district court’s ruling on Medicaid coverage for transgender reassignment surgeries. We are reviewing the decision with our legal team and exploring all options moving forward.”
A group of parents in Wisconsin, US, have filed a lawsuit against their children’s school over a policy that allows students to go by their chosen name and pronouns without telling their parents.
The parents claim that by allowing children to use different pronouns or a different name, the school has violated their “fundamental constitutional right” to “raise their children”.
Studies have found that consistently using the correct name or pronouns for young trans people reduces the likelihood they will become anxious, depressed and suicidal. Attempting to persuade a child not to be trans, also known as “conversion therapy”, has the opposite effect and has been found to cause “severe psychological distress”.
The parents’ lawsuit is being brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian law firm that supports making consensual LGBT+ sex illegal and has been designated an anti-LGBT+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center since 2016.
Conservative non-profit Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, known for opposing trans student Gavin Grimm’s long-running legal fight to be allowed to use the boys’ bathrooms at school, is also backing the case. In August, after seven years of court cases, Grimm won $1.3 million in compensation for the school’s refusal to let him use the boys’ bathrooms.
“The Kettle Moraine School District has violated this foundational right by undermining and overriding parents’ decision-making role with respect to a major and controversial issue,” the lawsuit states.
It continues: “Specifically, the district has adopted a policy to allow, facilitate, and ‘affirm’ a minor student’s request to transition to a different gender identity at school – without parental consent and even over the parents’ objection.”
The lawsuit also cites Kenneth Zucker, a discredited Canadian doctor who was sacked from a gender identity clinic because of concerns about his attempts to “cure” trans children, referencing his 1995 book as evidence that “the causes of transgenderism and gender dysphoria are still largely unknown”.
The parents claim that one of them was “forced” to withdraw their child from the school in order to “protect [him] and to preserve their parental role”.
The lawsuit suggests that this 12-year-old is a trans boy, who, according to the legal filing, had begun questioning his gender in December 2020. After expressing his wish to “adopt a new male name and use male pronouns” at school – which his parents decided would “not be in their [sons] best interest” – the parents called the school to ask that staff continue using his legal name and female pronouns.
The principle of the school refused, saying that “school staff would refer to [him] using whatever name and pronouns [he] wanted while at school, even over [his] parents’ objection”.
This policy of “allowing minor students to socially transition to a different gender identity at school without parental consent, and even over the parents’ objection”, the lawsuit alleges, violates their rights as parents.
According to The Guardian, the school did not respond to requests for comment, citing the pending litigation.
Eight-time Jeopardy! winner Amy Schneider has explained her moving gesture of trans solidarity.
Schneider made her Jeopardy! debut on November 17, in the middle of Transgender Awareness Week. Since then, she has won the game eight times, earning $295,200 (£222,000) from her stunning victories.
She’ll soon compete in the annual Tournament of Champions, which sees the 15 top contestants of the year go head-to-head. A contestant must clock five consecutive wins to qualify.
In an interview with Newsweek, Schneider revealed she had been trying to get on the gameshow for more than a decade. She was finally accepted by the show last year, but her appearance was delayed by the pandemic.
After her fifth win, Schneider penned an op-ed in the outlet to mark her becoming the first trans person to qualify for the Tournament of Champions.
As well as elaborating on her strategy and admitting her surprise at her winning streak, Schneider wrote about the importance of transgender representation on TV.
“It was inspirational for me to see transgender contestants on the show before I became a contestant and I hope that I am now doing that same thing for all the other trans Jeopardy! fans out there,” she wrote.
“I hope I have given them the opportunity to see a trans person succeed. Until very recently trans people didn’t see themselves doing much out in the world, so to actually see something like this happen really opens your mind up to possibilities.”
For the Thanksgiving episode of Jeopardy!, which aired on 25 November, Schneider wore a Trans Pride flag pin.
Explaining her decision to wear it, she wrote on Twitter: “Thanksgiving is a holiday that is all about family. And that can be hard for anybody who has been ostracised or otherwise cut off from their family, a group which, sadly, still includes a disproportionately high number of trans people, especially trans youth and trans people of colour.
“So, it felt like a good time to show my membership in, and support of, a community that might be having a hard time right now.”
The only public gender clinic for young trans people in the US state of Texas has closed after attacks by anti-trans activists.
The move comes amid rising tensions in the state over gender-affirming care for young trans people, with transphobic activists targeting officials at the hospital where the gender clinic was based and accusing them of promoting child abuse.
The GENder Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support program (GENECIS) was the first clinic of its kind in the Southwest, bringing mental health services, hormone specialists and young adult care together in one place.
GENECIS confirmed in a statement that existing patients would continue to receive treatment, but that while new patients referred into the hospital would be seen for diagnosis, including evaluation for gender dysphoria, they will not be offered puberty blockers or hormone replacement therapy.
“Pediatric endocrinology, psychiatry and adolescent and young adult care coordinated through this program are now managed and coordinated through each specialty department,” the statement says, according to the Texas Tribune.
It continues: “We do not anticipate any interruption of care or services for our existing patients who already receive care with these specialty teams.
“The choice to remove branding for this care offers a more private, insulated experience for patients and their families.”
The GENECIS closure comes less than two months after officials at the Children’s Medical Center Dallas, where the program was based, told The Dallas Express that the service was vital for young people with gender dysphoria and was helping to reduce the “significant suffering and extraordinarily high suicide” rates among trans youth.
“With a suicide attempt rate of up to 41 per cent for children and adolescents with gender dysphoria, there is a need for comprehensive care for these youth,” officials were quoted as saying in an email to the Dallas Express.
The email continued: “Given the significant suffering and extraordinarily high suicide rate in these children, offering a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach is needed to help treat this medical problem.”
Anti-trans activists who had targeted GENECIS repeated many of the Republican talking points opposing gender-affirming healthcare for young trans people, including falsely claiming that it is dangerous, irreversible or experimental.
The fact that doctors trying to “save lives” by treating young trans people had been harassed is “heartbreaking”, said Ricardo Martinez, the chief executive of LGBT+ campaign group Equality Texas.
“Accessing healthcare can be a courageous act for many LGBTQ+ people because of how difficult it is to find providers who are knowledgeable about our needs and the poor treatment we have experienced by insurers and/or providers in the past,” Martinez said.
News of the gender clinic closing comes at the end of Trans Awareness Week, during which billboards reading “Protect trans youth” and “Trans lives are precious” were towed on trucks around Austin, Texas, in solidarity with trans Texans.
A trio of House Democrats have introduced during a year with the highest recorded deaths of transgender and non-binary people a resolution that would officially recognize the annual occasion.
The measure was introduced by Reps. Marie Newman (D-Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), who are known as vocal transgender advocates and members of the Transgender Equality Task Force, as part of group of 62 members of the U.S. House, according to a statement from the LGBTQ Equality Caucus. The resolution would commemorate Nov. 20 as the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Newman, who’s been open about having a young transgender daughter, said in a statement violence against transgender Americans, particularly Black and Brown transgender women, has become a “national epidemic.”
“With this resolution, we are not only recognizing the far too many souls lost to violence this year but also honoring their memory with a commitment to fight against anti-trans hate, rhetoric and violence,” Newman said. “Transgender Americans face hateful and disgusting attacks — verbal and physical — every single day just for simply existing in the world, and each of us has a fundamental obligation to speak out against it.”
The Transgender Day of Remembrance comes with 2021 having the highest number of recorded killings of transgender and non-binary people in a single year. A total of 47 deaths have been recorded, according to the LGBTQ Equality Caucus.
Wexton said in a statement the ongoing deaths of transgender people are “cannot be overlooked or ignored,” calling 2021 the deadliest year on record.
“Our trans friends and neighbors face greater threats of violence, bullying, and discrimination in nearly every aspect of their lives, and they deserve justice and equality,” Wexton said.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, under questioning from the Washington Blade last week on whether President Biden was briefed on 2021 being the deadliest year on record for transgender people, said the grim milestone is “terrible and heartbreaking” although she said she was unsure on whether Biden was briefed.
The White House hasn’t responded with any update on whether or not Biden has been briefed as of the eve of the Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Jayapal, who in addition to being a transgender advocate has been the face of the $1.75 trillions Build Back Better plan approved recently in the House, said in a statement the names of each of the transgender dead should be spoken aloud, the action should follow.
“Our resolution acknowledges this truth as we continue our dedicated work to strengthen hate crime laws, pass the Equality Act through the Senate, and ensure that every transgender person is able to live freely as themselves,” Jayapal said.
An LGBTQ Equality Caucus spokesperson didn’t respond Friday to the Blade’s request to comment on whether House leadership gave the sponsors of the legislation any indication the resolution would obtain a floor vote.
Last Saturday, Que Bell led a vigil for Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual observance to honor the memory of transgender homicide victims that began in 1999.
Bell has led these vigils before. He is the executive director of the Knights and Orchids Society, a nonprofit group based in Selma, Alabama, that supports Black transgender, queer and gender-nonconforming people, and he has been an advocate for more than a decade. But this year will be different.
“This is literally the first time that I’ll have to write down my best friend’s name for a TDOR celebration,” Bell said, using the initialism for Transgender Day of Remembrance. “It’s really going to hit differently.”
Bell’s best friend, Mel Groves, died Oct. 11 after having been shot multiple times. Groves, 25, a Black transgender man, was studying plant and soil science at Alcorn State University in Lorman, Mississippi. Just before he died, he was about to become the full-time community garden manager for the Knights and Orchids Society.
But on Saturday, Bell will light a candle in Groves’ memory.
Groves is one of at least 47 transgender or gender-nonconforming people — and one of 28 Black trans people — to have died by violence in 2021, which has surpassed 2020 to become the deadliest year on record for trans people, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which has been tracking fatal anti-trans violence since 2013. A disproportionate number of the deaths have been in the Southeast.
State legislatures across the country this year have also considered a record number of anti-transgender bills — more than 100 — many of which target trans youths, specifically trans girls. Advocates say the rhetoric coming out of legislatures is connected to the violence, because it describes transgender girls as boys and vice versa and, in many cases, characterizes trans people as “predators”on sports teams or in bathrooms.
Transgender Day of Remembrance is also known as Transgender Day of Remembrance and Resilience — the latter part an effort to remind people that while trans people face disproportionate discrimination and violence, they are also leading grassroots efforts to make things better for their communities.
Deadnaming, misgendering and clearance rates
Bell said that he and Groves’ friends and family ultimately want the person who killed Groves brought to justice but that he doesn’t have confidence in the police investigation.
When the Jackson Police Department first reported on Groves’ death, it used his legal name and misgendered him, causing local news outlets to repeat the mistakes. Groves’ loved ones had to reach out while grieving his loss to ask news outlets to update their stories to reflect who Groves actually was. Some updated their stories; others said they couldn’t change them without confirmation from law enforcement authorities or Groves’ immediate family. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/nt4ufYW?_showcaption=true&app=1
A week after Groves died, Jackson police provided the same statement to NBC News that they first issued, which used his birth name (also known as deadnaming) and misgendered him. The police department hasn’t responded to a request for comment about whether it plans to update the statement.
Bell said police officials need to be more educated about what the trans community faces; otherwise, he said, they will be unable to solve the case. He recalled one officer’s public statement that he would investigate Groves’ death just like any other.
“That is totally avoiding the issue,” Bell said. “I want you to be knowledgeable enough to know that, when something happens to trans people, how your department should be reacting to it and how you can help, versus being so defensive about acknowledging that this happened because it was a trans issue.”
Bell said police need to understand that anti-trans violence is connected to discrimination and higher rates of homelessness, among other issues that trans people face, or “we’re never going to be able to solve the problem.”
Anti-trans fatal violence cases nationwide appear to have a lower average clearance rate — the percentage of cases in which someone has been arrested, charged and turned over to a court for prosecution — than fatal violence cases in general, said Brendan Lantz, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida State University.
Lantz and his research team at the university’s Hate Crime Research and Policy Institute are creating the first database to track fatal violence against the transgender community. Although the Human Rights Campaign and other nonprofit groups track such deaths, the database Lantz’s team is creating, which will date to 2012, also tracks characteristics of the offenses, victims’ background information, perpetrators’ information, handling by police departments (including whether victims were misgendered or deadnamed) and whether cases have been solved, among other information.
Preliminary data, which Lantz said are subject to change, show that the nationwide clearance rate for fatal anti-trans violence is about 44 percent, which is well below the national average of 60 percent to 70 percent.
Early patterns also show that there’s “very likely a correlation between the prevalence” of deadnaming or misgendering by police and the likelihood of clearing a case, he said.
Evidence is important when police are trying to solve a homicide, he said, “and if we’re not even using the correct name, obtaining that evidence isn’t particularly easy to do, right?”
“Witnesses are less likely to come forward, and a lot of issues enter the equation,” he said.
Transgender rights groups say anti-trans sentiment, reflected in bills considered in dozens of states, affects how trans people are treated, including by police. Police initially misgendered victims and used their birth names in reporting on 30 of the 46 known deaths, an NBC News analysis found.
Since 2013, about 80 percent of trans people in deaths involving trans people with available data were initially misgendered by the media or law enforcement, according to a report released Wednesday by the Human Rights Campaign. An NBC News analysis of this year’s cases found that victims in 73 percent of investigations were misgendered or deadnamed by police, compared to 59 percent of cases in which someone was arrested and charged.
‘A sense of survival mode’
Trans advocates say some policymakers and national advocacy organizations are quick to suggest police reform as a solution.
But while many of them agree that improving police competence and investigations is important, they say the strategy addresses the issue only after the fact — when people have already died.
That leaves many in the transgender community feeling unsafe, which has led some of them to take their safety and well-being into their own hands.
“When you get tired of depending on a system to protect you that you know was not designed to protect you or to support you, you realize that you’re literally wasting time and resources putting money into a system that is not going to change,” Bell said. “So instead … we decided to start investing in the things that we could tangibly change.”
Advocates like Bell say community organizations should be given more resources and support, because they know how to best keep their people safe and help them thrive — by providing them with gender-affirming health care, as the Knights and Orchids Society does, or housing, as a number of trans-led groups across the country do.
Mariah Moore, a national trans rights activist and a co-director of the House of Tulip, a nonprofit collective creating housing solutions for trans people in Louisiana, said: “It’s so important that we support community-led initiatives, because those folks leading those initiatives are actually folks who have that lived experience and are able to speak to the needs and actually distribute those resources directly to impacted community members.”
Bell echoed that sentiment with respect to funding for nonprofit groups. He said that many people support and know of national advocacy organizations but that the groups aren’t providing emergency housing or money for trans people.
“I’m committed to this work to always keep trans folks safe,” he said, adding that he has been evicted twice in the past because he has provided a place for people experiencing homelessness to stay, some of them as young as 13.
“That comes out of a sense of survival mode,” he said. “I don’t have a lot, but what I do have I want to share with the folks who are like me who also don’t have.”
In neighboring Georgia, Toni-Michelle Williams, the executive director of the Atlanta-based Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative, a Black trans- and queer-led organization that builds community safety through organizing and leadership training, said the group has supported more than 160 people through its Taking Care of Our Own Fund, which provides funding for emergency bail, housing, health care and other needs.
The group provided the support with less than 3 percent of $15 million, Williams said, which represents this year’s budget increasefor the Atlanta Police Department.
“Just imagine what we could do for our communities — Black trans and queer folks, sex workers, formerly incarcerated people — with at least 3 percent of that funding,” she said. “I definitely just want to encourage people to continue to push and to join our side around what it means to reallocate funding from these large institutions that have so many resources. Our communities are in need of them.”
Looking ahead, Bell said he’s determined “not to lose another Mel.”
“I want to do everything I can to make sure that we don’t have any more Mel Groves — that we don’t have another person who slips through the cracks, that for whatever reason we have the resources to make sure that folks have a fighting chance,” he said.
He added that he feels as though he has done a disservice to trans people who have been killed in the past. “Because what I don’t want people to remember about Mel is that he was the 39th person murdered,” Bell said. “And that’s often what happens when we lose somebody, is that the tragedy of their death is highlighted over their legacy, their purpose and all the good things that they have contributed to the world during their time.”
He wants people to remember that Groves was a promising scientist and that his professors bragged about him and his research after his death. He loved Nat King Cole, he had a smile that made people want to talk to him, and he always offered to share food with his friends.