Post by Ayla on Feb 1, 2016 10:51:21 GMT 8
... The celebrated transformation of Caitlyn Jenner has accelerated cultural acceptance of transgender individuals, coming as it did after positive portrayals of characters in film, TV and on Broadway. But while hits such as “Kinky Boots,” “Orange Is the New Black,” “Transparent” and “The Danish Girl” (just nominated for two Oscars) have explored the difficulties facing transgender women, they remain subject to disproportionate violence, including assaults and homicides, advocates and academics say.
Making matters worse, they say, is that many people fear such crimes won’t be investigated or prosecuted as vigorously as those involving other victims, in part because of disparaging attitudes among some law-enforcement officers. Police have been known to exacerbate the problem by perpetrating abuse themselves. Assault victims are often too afraid to report having been attacked, which means that underreporting — by them as well as among police — remains pervasive.
Advocates call the situation a crisis. “The world is a dangerous place for us,” said Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, a former policy advisor at the National Center for Transgender Equality. “We’re trying to make it better, and hopefully, God willing, it will get better. But it’s not getting better fast enough.”
***
Many advocates worry that alarm about the violence has not gotten the attention it deserves, with one contributing factor being insufficient official data. There are no statistics, for example, to confirm that transgender victims are less likely to get justice than others, though experts claim law-enforcement prejudice makes subpar treatment all but certain.
The FBI, spurred by the Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009, which made it a felony to attack someone because of their actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation or gender identity, didn’t begin tracking such assaults until 2013 and has yet to compile reliable data. That year 31 of the 5,922 hate crimes involved gender-identity bias, about half of one percent, the bureau concluded. Among incidents involving one form of bias in 2014, there were 109 offenses involving gender identity, 69 of which were anti-transgender, the FBI said.
The numbers could be attributed to lackadaisical reporting by local police departments, which forward their data to the FBI on a voluntary basis. Numerous agencies have either not sent their figures to the FBI or reported zero hate crimes, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy organization. On announcing its 2014 stats, the FBI noted in a press release that while 15,494 law-enforcement agencies contributed to the bureau’s hate-crime report, “only 1,666 agencies reported hate crimes within their jurisdiction(s).”...
fusion.net/story/261318/transgender-women-murders/?utm_source=facebook
Making matters worse, they say, is that many people fear such crimes won’t be investigated or prosecuted as vigorously as those involving other victims, in part because of disparaging attitudes among some law-enforcement officers. Police have been known to exacerbate the problem by perpetrating abuse themselves. Assault victims are often too afraid to report having been attacked, which means that underreporting — by them as well as among police — remains pervasive.
Advocates call the situation a crisis. “The world is a dangerous place for us,” said Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, a former policy advisor at the National Center for Transgender Equality. “We’re trying to make it better, and hopefully, God willing, it will get better. But it’s not getting better fast enough.”
***
Many advocates worry that alarm about the violence has not gotten the attention it deserves, with one contributing factor being insufficient official data. There are no statistics, for example, to confirm that transgender victims are less likely to get justice than others, though experts claim law-enforcement prejudice makes subpar treatment all but certain.
The FBI, spurred by the Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009, which made it a felony to attack someone because of their actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation or gender identity, didn’t begin tracking such assaults until 2013 and has yet to compile reliable data. That year 31 of the 5,922 hate crimes involved gender-identity bias, about half of one percent, the bureau concluded. Among incidents involving one form of bias in 2014, there were 109 offenses involving gender identity, 69 of which were anti-transgender, the FBI said.
The numbers could be attributed to lackadaisical reporting by local police departments, which forward their data to the FBI on a voluntary basis. Numerous agencies have either not sent their figures to the FBI or reported zero hate crimes, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy organization. On announcing its 2014 stats, the FBI noted in a press release that while 15,494 law-enforcement agencies contributed to the bureau’s hate-crime report, “only 1,666 agencies reported hate crimes within their jurisdiction(s).”...
fusion.net/story/261318/transgender-women-murders/?utm_source=facebook
