William Alejandro Martínez, a trans man from Honduras, stood up for his rights when military police officers stopped him in Comayagüela in May 2019 and asked to see his identity card. They questioned him about his gender identity, physically assaulted him, and threatened to arrest him. “Don’t touch me, I’m a human rights defender,” Martínez insisted. That’s when an officer pointed a rifle at him, saying “I don’t give a damn what you are.” “My life passed before my eyes,” Martínez remembered.
Ten years before Martínez stared into the barrel of a gun, Vicky Hernández, a trans woman, sex worker, and activist, was killed on the streets of San Pedro Sula. Last week, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights heard a case arguing that the Honduran government is responsible for Hernández’s loss of life.
The petitioners acting for the deceased, Cattrachas Lesbian Network and RFK Human Rights, argue the government bore direct responsibility for Hernández’s death, and that in failing to conduct an effective investigation into her killing, including whether it was motivated by anti-LGBT prejudice, Honduras violated her right to life under the American Convention on Human Rights.
The case reached the Inter-American Court because Honduras failed to comply with recommendations the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued in 2018. These included establishing a rights-respecting process to secure legal recognition for trans people’s gender identity, mapping violence against LGBT people and introducing a comprehensive policy to address its structural causes, and training security forces on anti-LGBT violence.
Human Rights Watch made similar recommendations in a report published today, part of our work on anti-LGBT violence and discrimination in Central America’s Northern Triangle. The report found that the Honduran government has failed to effectively address violence and entrenched discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, leading many to seek asylum in the US. In some cases, security officers themselves are perpetrators of violence.
After William Martínez survived a second assault by military police in June 2019, he fled the country. Exile should not be the only way to escape violence. Honduras should take urgent steps to protect LGBT people from violence and discrimination.
GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization, released the findings of its 2020 Post-election Poll of LGBTQ registered voters, including a phenomenol turnout of the LGBTQ vote, a surge of first-time LGBTQ voters, an overwhelming vote for President-elect Joe Biden, with votes motivated by three top issues urgently demanding a more robust response from our nation’s leaders: COVID-19, healthcare and racial justice.
The poll, conducted November 9-14 with 800 LGBTQ respondents by Pathfinder Opinion Research, found that 93% of respondents who reported being LGBTQ registered voters said they voted in the 2020 general election. 25% voted for the first time. Among all LGBTQ voters, 81% voted for President-elect Biden and 14% for President Trump. Among first-time LGBTQ voters, 86% voted for President-elect Biden, 10% for President Trump.
Among LGBTQ adults, 78% rated President-elect Biden “excellent or good” in addressing LGBTQ issues during the campaign. 80% rated President Trump “not so good or poor” in addressing LGBTQ issues during the campaign. 59% of LGBTQ voters said they didn’t see election-related news coverage of LGBTQ issues during the Presidential campaign, an absence GLAAD repeatedly raised before and after debates and town halls and addressed in multiple stories across the media.
As for the election result itself, two-thirds said Biden’s win made them feel optimistic for the future. But a majority of respondents expressed concern that a conservative Supreme Court could severely impact progress on issues such as marriage equality, abortion rights and employment protections.
“With this Supreme Court being packed with conservative judges, it is concerning to say the least,” says Sarah Kate Ellis, CEO of GLAAD, whose Trump Accountability Project indicates the president “attacked the LGBTQ community 181 times since he took office, or about once a week.”
Ellis is concerned religious rights will be used by the Supreme Court as a way to rule against LGBTQ Americans’ civil rights. She pointed to Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a case currently before the Supreme Court involving a city agency that denied LGBTQ couples the ability to serve as foster parents on the grounds of religious beliefs.
The International Transgender Day Of Remembrance will be held on Nov. 20th, 2020.
Trans Day Of Remembrance (TDoR) is a day which remembers those trans and gender-diverse people who have been victims of homicide.
Though the event began in the US, TDoR now happens in many parts of the world.
Vigils are usually held in person all around the world, but due to the pandemic and varying levels of lockdowns and restrictions, the community is expected to take to social media to join together in grief and remembrance.
The City of West Hollywood will host an online Transgender Day of Remembrance Ceremony on Friday, November 20, 2020 at 6 p.m. featuring speakers and a reading of names to memorialize people who have been murdered as a result of anti-transgender violence.
The event will feature the traditional Reading of the Names wherein community members will recite the name of at least one person and brief biographical details of the person being memorialized. The reading is pre-recorded and has been made part of a video presentation, which will be played during the virtual event. The City encourages community members to take part and to honor these lives and memories as well as to take the opportunity to reflect on the work that remains to be done.
350 transgender people were killed this year around the world, a figure that has risen since last year’s total of 331. In the United States alone at least 33 transgender or gender non-conforming people fatally shot or killed by other violent means. A disproportionately high number of these victims are black and latinx transgender women.
The annual list, released for Transgender Day of Remembrance, found the average age of those killed was 31, with the youngest just 15.
The Pride LA mourns those we have lost in the transgender community and works toward justice and equality for transgender and gender non-conforming people.
A list of the transgender lives that have been lost in the United States has been listed in memoriam:
Dustin Parker, 25
Neulisa Luciano Ruiz
Yampi Méndez Arocho, 19
Monika Diamond, 34
Lexi, 33
Johanna Metzger
Serena Angelique Velázquez Ramos, 32
Layla Pelaez Sánchez, 21
Penélope Díaz Ramírez
Nina Pop
Helle Jae O’Regan, 20
Tony McDade
Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells
Riah Milton, 25
Jayne Thompson, 33
Selena Reyes-Hernandez, 37
Brian “Egypt’ Powers, 43
Brayla Stone, 17
Merci Mack, 22
Shaki Peters, 32
Bree Black, 27
Summer Taylor
Marilyn Cazares
Dior H Ova (aka Tiffany Harris)
Queasha D Hardy, 22
Aja Raquell Rhone-Spears (aka Rocky Rhone) Kee Sam,
A Hungarian government proposal to amend the constitution to restrict adoption to married couples is designed to exclude lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and families and is an affront to common European values, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Hungarian parliament should reject it resoundingly. And the European Commission should make clear that the government’s latest slew of legal changes is not compatible in a European Union based on tolerance and nondiscrimination.
“It seems nothing will derail this government from cruelly and pointlessly targeting one of the most marginalized groups in Hungarian society, not even soaring coronavirus infections and Covid-19 related deaths,” said Lydia Gall, senior researcher in the Europe and Central Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. “Under the pretext of combatting a misguided conception of ‘gender ideology,’ the government further restricts rights and stigmatizes thousands of Hungarian citizens.”
The government presented to parliament a number of constitutional amendments on November 10, 2020, the same day parliament had voted to extend by 90 days the state of emergency Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government declared on November 3. The ruling party, Fidesz, which has a two-thirds majority in parliament, is set to vote on the proposals within weeks. If passed, it would be the 9th of constitutional amendments since the Orban government came into power for the second time in 2010.
The bill states that only married couples will be eligible to adopt children, with the minister in charge of family policies able to make exceptions on a case-by-case basis. It effectively excludes same-sex couples, single people, and unmarried different-sex couples from adopting children.
The bill includes language that stigmatizes transgender people, stating that “children have the right to their identity in line with their sex at birth” and rejecting diversity and inclusivity by mandating that children’s upbringing should be “in accordance with the values based on our homeland’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”
The bill is the latest attack on LGBT people in Hungary. In May, the parliament, during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, banned legal gender recognition meaning transgender and intersex people in Hungary cannot legally change their gender or sex (both called “nem” in Hungarian) assigned at birth. The restriction has serious repercussions for people’s everyday lives, Human Rights Watch said. It also follows increasingly hostile anti-LGBT statements by high-ranking public officials, including Prime Minister Orban.
In September, a Hungarian children’s book was published, with new versions of well-known fairy tales, featuring members of marginalized groups, including LGBT people, Roma, and people with disabilities. It sparked a wave of homophobic attacks, with right-wing extremist politicians publicly shredding the book. Other key government officials added their voices to the hate campaign in October, and Orban, on a radio show, commented on the book, saying that the LGBT community should “leave our children alone.”
Days after the government submitted the bills to parliament, the European Commission introduced a new LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and queer) strategy. EU funds available to member states to carry out the strategy would be linked to compliance with EU anti-discrimination law.
The vice president of the EU Commission, Vera Jourova, on November 12 stated that abuse against the LGBT community “belongs to the authoritarian playbook and has no place in the EU.” The increasingly homophobic policies of populist conservative governments in Hungary and Poland are at odds with the Commission’s proposed LGBTIQ strategy and the principles of tolerance and nondiscrimination it is designed to protect, Human Rights Watch said.
Hungary’s justice minister, Judit Varga, dismissed the strategy, calling it a “seemingly limitless ideology [being] forced on Member States” and saying that Hungary would “not accept any financial threats for protecting the traditional role of family and marriage.” The Hungarian government on November 16blocked the adoption of the seven-year EU budget because the budget ties access to some EU funds to respect for the rule of law.
Earlier in the year, parliament blocked ratification of a regional treaty on violence against women. The Council of Europe Convention on Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention, has established a gold standard for inclusion, recognizing everyone’s right to live free from violence, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristics.
The government submitted a separate bill to amend the electoral law, which would make it much harder for opposition parties to win elections. It would effectively require opposition parties to create joint party lists and run joint candidates to have any chance of winning an election.
“The Hungarian government’s latest efforts to cement intolerance and remove safeguards against the abuse of power should set off alarm bells in Brussels,” Gall said. “The EU Commission and other member states should strengthen scrutiny and use the EU’s systems and funds to increase respect for EU’s common democratic values and to protect marginalized populations.”
Dr Rachel Levine, Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, has been tipped for a high-ranking position in the Joe Biden administration.
Levine is one of the highest-ranking transgender officials in the US, and has spent this year leading Pennsylvania’s response to the pandemic in the face of shameless transphobia.
Her hard work and decades of medical experience could soon be rewarded, with her name now attached to two key White House roles.
The LGBTQ Victory Fund, a political action committee (PAC) that helped elect hundreds of queer politicians in the 2020 election, has suggested Biden should appoint Levine either secretary of health and human services or US surgeon general.
Ruben Gonzalez, vice president of the PAC, said the organisation has already had “informal conversations” with the Biden transition team regarding LGBT+ appointments, and is “feeling very confident and very hopeful that we will see trans people serve in high-level roles in this administration”.
“Dr Rachel Levine has served Pennsylvania incredibly well as their secretary of health for a number of years, leading their response on COVID, and leading their response on the opioid crisis in Pennsylvania,” Gonzalez said, via the American Independent.
“I think someone like her is well-poised to serve at a high-level in a Biden administration.”
The LGBQT Victory Fund has made a number of other suggestions, includingPete Buttigieg for UN ambassador; Maura Healey, the first openly gay state attorney general, for US attorney general; Tammy Baldwin, the first out lesbian in Congress, for the Department of Health and Human Services; and Raphael Bostic, the first out gay man and first Black man to lead a regional bank for the Federal Reserve, as secretary of the treasury.
With more than 4,100 roles available in the incoming administration, the LGBTQ Victory Fund says that there should be at least 185 queer appointees in order for the new White House to be properly representative.
As Joe Biden prepares to take office in January, he has already begun naming staff to his presidential transition team.
Among them is Shawn Skelly, who was the first transgender veteran to get a presidential appointment when Barack Obama named her director of the Office of the Executive Secretariat at the Department of Transportation.
The former Navy commander will help Biden evaluate the Department of Defense, understanding how it operates and helping ensure a smooth transfer of power.
Karine Jean-Pierre could become the first out lesbian and first Black woman to be named White House press secretary.
The political heavyweight served as Kamala Harris’ chief of staff during the Biden-Harris campaign, and has now been tipped for a permanent role in the new administration.
NBC’s White House correspondent Geoff Bennett tweeted Wednesday (18 November) that Jean-Pierre has “emerged as a top candidate” for press secretary, citing multiple sources.
Symone Sanders, TV pundit and a senior advisor to the campaign “has also been discussed” for the role, he added.
“No final decisions have been made, officials stress, as the emerging West Wing leadership also considers how to structure the communications office in a rapidly-changing media environment,” Bennett added.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=PinkNews&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1329069612911239171&lang=en-gb&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinknews.co.uk%2F2020%2F11%2F19%2Fpolitical-trailblazer-karine-jean-pierre-tipped-to-be-first-ever-black-and-lgbt-white-house-press-secretary%2F&siteScreenName=PinkNews&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=500px
Were Karine Jean-Pierre to clinch the role, she would be the first Black woman in the role as well as the first out LGBT+ press secretary.
Many will recognise her from a viral video in which she jumped to protect Harris after an animal rights activist attempted to grab her microphone during a campaign event in 2019.
A seasoned campaigner, activist and strategist, she has previously worked on presidential campaigns for John Edwards, Martin O’Malley and Barack Obama.
She also served on Obama’s White House staff as a regional political director, and was hired to Harris’ team in August, becoming the first Black person to serve as a presidential candidate’s chief of staff.
She is well-known as a political pundit thanks to numerous appearances on NBC News and MSNBC, and has long been a vocal advocate for LGBT+ rights and equality.
Karine Jean-Pierre fought Trump for the sake of her daughter.
In 2011 she spoke about her experiences working in politics as an openly gay woman.
Shortly after she left her position in the Obama administration, she told The Advocate: “What’s been wonderful is that I was not the only; I was one of many.
Almost half (46 per cent) of LGBT+ school students in England do not feel safe to be themselves at school, a study has revealed.
LGBT+ education charity Diversity Role Models released its “Pathways to LGBT+ Inclusion” report Wednesday (18 November), which quizzed 6,136 students and 5,733 adults from 90 schools, which were all “at the start” of their journey towards LGBT+ inclusion.
It found that across the board, 46 per cent of LGBT+ students would not feel safe coming out at school. Of secondary school students, this figure jumped to almost three quarters (73 per cent).
In a foreword for the report, presenter Clare Balding said: “Just let that sink in. The place you are relying upon to prepare you for the world, the place where you are supposed to get an all-round education is not currently a safe space if you are LGBT+.”
The report also highlighted a huge disparity between the experiences of LGBT+ students and what the teachers responsible for their care were willing to admit.
While 42 per cent of year five and six primary school students and 54 per cent of secondary school students said that homophobic, biphobic and transphobic language was common at their school, just 26 per cent of teachers admitted this was the case.
When this language did come up, just 67 per cent of primary school teachers and 78 per cent of secondary school teachers said they challenged it.
But, according to students, the situation is even worse. Less than a third (32 per cent) of secondary school kids said that staff challenged anti-LGBT+ language.
Balding added: “The report has discovered that parents, staff and governors tend to underestimate the occurrence of bullying compared to the pupils themselves.
“This is crucial because what adults may think and how adults may react to language will naturally be more considered and resilient. We grow stronger as we grow older but children don’t have those layers of protective experience.
“They respond and react as if stung or burnt and it’s why it is so important that we take these findings seriously and we, as adults, react quickly to protect the most vulnerable.”
Researchers spoke to “selective and non-selective schools, independent, faith schools and non-denominational schools, local-authority-maintained schools, academies, free schools and mixed- and single-gender schools” in London, the West Midlands and the South East of England, to compile the report.
Discrimination and bullying at school can have tragic consequences for LGBT+ youth, who are already at greater risk for mental health problems.
LGBTQ candidates once again made history in terms of the overall number elected to Congress and state legislatures across the country. However, many of them had to contend with homophobic and transphobic attack ads this election cycle.
“There is little doubt that millions of dollars in homophobic and transphobic attacks ads devastated our candidates in key swing districts during the final weeks of their campaigns,” said Annise Parker, president of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which trains and advocates for queer candidates at all levels of government. “Bigoted politicians and operatives who thrive in the politics of hate were able to peel away support from voters who don’t yet know our community.”
Bigoted ads did not spell defeat for all LGBTQ candidates they targeted, but even the candidates who overcame the attacks did have to invest resources to respond to them.
Impacts ‘hard to quantify’
When it comes to homophobic and transphobic political attacks, “it is hard to quantify the effects,” according to Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
“When you have an incumbent president who is such a polarizing figure, it becomes harder to disentangle what is the effect the homophobic attack ad and what is the effect of having Donald Trump on the ballot,” he said.
He also explained that “voter suppression efforts that target constituents that are generally most supportive of Democratic candidates,” also hurt LGBTQ candidates, as the lion’s share of them run as Democrats (at least 90 percent, according to LGBTQ Victory Fund’s estimate).
Whether a candidate won or lost may not be indicative of the impact of the bigoted attacks either, as Magni said the bar tends to be higher for LGBTQ candidates who make it to the general election, so “the exceptional quality of some of these candidates allowed them to overcome the negative effects of some of these attacks.”
Nonincumbents and purple districts
Homophobic and transphobic attacks produced mixed impacts on congressional races, with nonincumbents and those in purple districts most likely to suffer defeat.
In New Hampshire, Democrat Chris Pappas — who in 2018 became the first openly gay man to represent the state in Congress — was able to stave off what supporters called homophobic challenges to his integrity to win re-election against Republican challenger Matt Mowers.
During a debate Oct, 21, Mowers brought up Pappas’ alleged relationship with a lobbyist and accused the candidate of impropriety. Pappas denied the claim, and in a statement after the debate, he said Mowers’ behavior was “despicable” and that he had “crossed a line.”
Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., speaks during a news conference on Sept. 27, 2019.Bill Clark / CQ Roll Call via AP
Mowers’ campaign manager, John Corbett, called the homophobia claims “untruthful accusations” designed to divert public attention from policy issues and obscure Pappas’ relationship with the lobbyist.
“Matt Mowers learned the hard way that his desperate homophobic dog whistle attacks cost him votes amongst Republicans and independent voters in the closing days of the campaign,” Lucas Meyer, campaign manager for Pappas, said in an email to NBC News after his election victory. “Granite Staters saw right through his baseless attacks and rejected his blatant bigotry that he made the focus of his closing message.”
While Pappas was in a purple district, which President Donald Trump carried in 2016, he had the advantage of incumbency this year. “Homophobic attacks are less effective against well-known candidates, because voters already know them,” Magni said.
Nonincumbent congressional hopefuls in purple districts had a tougher time trying to flip red to blue districts.
Two races for which LGBTQ advocates and Democrats had high hopes — Gina Ortiz Jones and John Hoadley — did not pan out.
Hoadley lost against incumbent Republican Rep. Fred Upton, who voted against the Equality Act last year and for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in 2004 and 2006.
Texas Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, who ran for a House seat in 2018 and 2020, in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 10, 2018.Eric Gay / AP file
Former U.S. Air Force Capt. Jones lost to Republican Tony Gonzales, a Navy veteran, failing to flip Texas’ 23rd Congressional District for Democrats.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) spent millions of dollars on attack ads against both of these candidates.
“If you are running for congress as a nonincumbent,” Magni said, “not so many people know who they are.” This means that voters may “rely more heavily on stereotypes or homophobic tropes,” especially in the context of Covid-19 in which personal contact is even more limited.
By contrast, derogatory comments directed at Rep.-elect Ritchie Torres did not harm his chances of becoming the first Afro-Latinx LGBTQ person elected to Congress. He easily won the general election for his congressional seat against his Republican opponent in one of the most progressive districts in the country. Magni said the attacks are “less consequential” in heavily Democratic districts like New York’s 15th.
Hateful messages
Magni explained that the diverse candidate pool, with many women, people of color and transgender candidates are “especially vulnerable targets” for anti-LGBTQ messaging.
Jenna Wadsworth, an outspoken progressive, lost her bid for North Carolina’s agriculture commissioner. In October, Wadsworth became the target of online vitriol after she posted a video asking viewers if Donald Trump’s diagnosis with Covid-19 was their “favorite or most favorite October surprise.”
Wadsworth, who described animosity toward her prior to the video as “minimal,” quickly became inundated with thousands of messages on social media.
Many of the hateful messages, however, were not about Wadsworth’s controversial remarks about Trump’s health — they were about her being unfit for office because of her sexual orientation, gender identity and sex.
“That does a lot to you emotionally, psychologically. It’s very draining,” she said.
Some of the messages made Wadsworth fear for her physical safety. “I received gang rape threats after that video,” Wadsworth said. “Until election night, I was not able to stay in my own home for three weeks.”
Magni described North Carolina as a “deeply divided state when it comes to LGBTQ attitudes” and added that part of the electorate “is receptive to these kinds of attacks.”
Wadsworth, who at 31 would have been the youngest LGBTQ statewide elected official in the country’s history, lost the race and said she believes her campaign suffered due to the bigoted attacks. She said she has not decided what is next for her politically.
Unexpected boost?
Several candidates experienced an unexpected boost in support and financing as a result of homophobic and transphobic attacks.
Shevrin Jones easily won his race for Florida Legislature last Tuesday to become Florida’s first LGBTQ state senator.
In August, a blood bank rejected Jones when he sought to donate plasma after recovering from Covid-19 because he is in a same-sex relationship. A robotext, whose sponsor remains unknown, was sent to voters saying Jones was “discriminated against for recent homosexual contact,” and linked to ShevJones.com, which is not Jones’ website and does not appear to ever have had any information on it. Jones was also the subject of a homophobic flyer with a photo of himself and his partner on vacation and asked, “Is this who you want for your next state senator?”
Shevrin Jones.Greg Reed Photography
The attacks did not stop Jones, and paradoxically may have helped in terms of support and funding.
“We raised over $1 million,” Jones said. “When those attacks were coming people just gave more.”
Brianna Titone, who won her bid for re-election to the Colorado Statehouse, experienced several transphobic attack ads.
The group Take Back Colorado released a Facebook ad this month that misgendered Titone and referred to her by her “deadname,” the name she used before her transition. The ad also claimed Titone has “always supported violence” and sexualizes children. Then Republican state Rep. Stephen Humphrey voiced a robocall paid for by the Colorado Family Values Victory Fund attacking Titone’s gender identity.
Magni said transgender candidates may be more likely to become the target of attacks because “public support for trans rights is still lower” than for lesbian and gay rights.
Titone triumphed over the attacks, which led to increases in volunteer support and campaign contributions. “The attacks I had to endure didn’t create any obstacles for me that I didn’t already have,” she told NBC News. “If anything, it helped me with raising money and it convinced some people to support me based on the ads.”
She also feels that her attackers were emboldened by the Trump administration that has “given permission to be rude.”
“I’m curious to see how my new colleagues will treat me. Will they be towing the line of those messages, or will they realize that that is not productive and move away?,” she said.
Omar Leos, who won his race for North East School District board in San Antonio, had a similar experience.
“I think it helped energize the campaign. It mobilized more people to come out to volunteer and it definitely helped me financially too,” Leos told NBC News.
“In my personal opinion, it backfired on them,” Leos said.
Texas Family Action, a political action committee affiliated with the conservative San Antonio Family Association, sent a mailer to voters in Leos’ district describing him as being “‘married’ to same-sex man” and noting he has “no children” in the school district. In contrast, the mailer described Leos’ opponent, Ione McGinty, as a “wife and mother of 6.”
While Leos still won, Magni said that such attacks can “force the campaign to redirect the resources and shift media focus,” he said. “The campaign has to respond.”
Leos did say the homophobic attacks prompted him to shift his campaign message to highlight the unwillingness of his opponent to be an advocate for LGBTQ students.
“Before on my signs was ‘Keep Omar Leos,’” he said. After the homophobic attacks he shifted his message to “A voice for all.”
“I’m a voice for all students, for all people,” Leos said.
‘Soldier on’
There is no reason to believe LGBTQ candidates have seen the last of homophobic and transphobic attacks, but Magni said a swift response by candidates and their allies is important to prevent their opponents from defining the narrative of the campaign.
LGBTQ candidates also need to remember that they are targets because they are strong candidates who have the potential to win, Magni added.
“That should encourage them to soldier on and to keep in mind the ultimate goal — that is, that they are running to serve their constituents.”
Bias attacks based on gender identity rose significantly in 2019, according to a new FBI report on hate crimes.
Released this week, the annual Uniform Crime Report indicates that, last year, 227 hate-crime incidents were motivated by gender-identity bias. That’s up 20 percent from 2018, when 189 such incidents were reported.
Drilling into the data, there were 175 victims of anti-transgender bias and 52 victims of anti-gender-nonconforming bias reported last year, compared to 160 victims of anti-trans bias and 29 victims of anti-gender-nonconforming bias the year prior.
Civil rights advocates have long criticized the report for failing to represent the full number of hate crimes in the United States, since reporting isn’t mandatory. Last year, only 2,172 law enforcement agencies out of about 15,000, or less than 15 percent, reported hate crime data, the FBI said.
Since 2018, the number of agencies submitting hate crime statistics actually decreased by 451.
More than 70 cities with populations over 100,000 either failed to report data or affirmatively reported zero hate crimes. The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ civil rights group, said cities of that size not having a single hate crime all year “is clearly not credible.”
“The lack of mandatory reporting means that the FBI data, while helpful, paints an incomplete picture of hate crimes against the LGBTQ and other communities,” the organization said in a statement.https://dataviz.nbcnews.com/projects/20200714-trans-homicide-annual-barchart/index.html?initialWidth=560&childId=embed-20200128-coronavirus-us-count&parentTitle=Anti-transgender%20hate%20crimes%20soared%2020%20percent%20in%202019&=
In 2019, at least 27 transgender or gender-nonconforming persons died by violence, according to the group. Again, the real number is likely higher, as not all deaths are accurately reported, nor are all victims accurately identified.
In 2020, that figure has risen to 36, the most since the group began tracking these deaths in 2013, with more than a month left in the year.
“This year, we saw a tragic new record of fatal violence against transgender and gender-nonconforming people in this country, particularly against Black and Brown transgender women,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement. “These alarming statistics represent real trauma for individuals and families across this country who have to bear the brunt of these hate crimes.”
In a statement released prior to the election, Biden vowed to “put forward comprehensive solutions to help empower the transgender and gender-nonconforming community and prioritize the prosecution of anti-transgender violence.”
The FBI’s annual report defines hate crimes as those motivated by bias based on a person’s race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, among other categories.
In all, the bureau received 7,314 reports of hate crimes in 2019, up from 7,120 in 2018 and approaching the record 7,783 in 2008.
Reported attacks based on sexual orientation dipped slightly, from 1,445 in 2018 to 1,429 in 2019. They represented 16.8 percent of all hate crimes, the third largest category after race and religion.
Crimes involving religion-based bias rose, with attacks targeting Jewish people and institutions increasing 14 percent and those targeting Muslims increasing 16 percent. For the fourth year in a row, there was also a significant uptick in hate crimes targeting the Latino community, increasing 9 percent from last year.
Hate crimes against Black Americans dropped slightly, from 1,943 to 1,930.
It took just one day for Target to pull a screening U-turn Friday (13 November) after it removed a transphobic book off its digital shelves, prompting anti-trans users to pelt the American retail giant into submission.
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughter, which is currently rated just two-and-a-half stars on Target’s website, has been fiercely upbraided by LGBT+ rights activists since its July 2020 release.×
Penned by renowned anti-trans journalist Abigail Shrier, a firebrand Wall Street Journal writer who has obsessively written about vastly debunked anti-trans theories, the book trumpets that being trans is a “contagion”, a “craze” and an “epidemic”.
While Target initially said it would remove the text, a torrent of anti-trans Twitter accounts, including Shrier, criticised the company for doing so, promoting Target to walk back and relist the book.
Twitter users sought to sound the alarm as to why Target was stocking a book that rails against a so-called “transgender epidemic sweeping the country”. The company, amid backlash, tweeted on Thursday (12 November): “Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.
“We have removed this book from our assortment.”
Author Shrier quickly took aim at Target, tweeting that the company had made her “book disappear”, igniting countless anti-trans users to send incensed tweets and emails to Target.
Does it bother anyone that woke activists and spineless corporations now determine what Americans are allowed to read?” she added.
Target later tepidly responded to a tweet by a user with less than 1,000 followers and whose display picture is of a painting by Alex Grey. The user called on Target not to “submit to Stalinist thought policing”.
“We want to offer a broad assortment for our guests and are adding this book back to Target.com. We apologise for any confusion.”
Trans people in the US have themselves been reduced to political targets with increasing temerity by the Trump administration in the last four years, where the president’s officials have peeled back a roster of legal protections across countless federal departments and programs – defence, housing, health and education.
All the while, an actual epidemic – one of violence against trans people – continues to rip across the States, with 2020, monitoring groups warn, being the deadliest year for trans people since records began with 34 trans people murdered at the time of writing.
