2020 is seeing an "epidemic" in transgender and gender non-conforming murders

This year, the Human Rights Campaign has recorded at least 21 violent deaths of transgender or gender non-conforming people. In 2019, they tracked at least 27. In what is being called an epidemic, 2020 is likely to see more fatal attacks than in 2019.

The Human Rights Campaign says at least because too often these stories go unreported -- or misreported.

The month of June brought celebrations of LGBTQ+ Pride that often intersected with the Black Lives Matter protests.

Tori Cooper, Director of Community Engagement for HRCs Trans Justice Initiative, said, In just four days, we have seen the deaths of at least three transgender and gender non-conforming people [] This horrific spike in violence against our community must be an urgent call to action for every single person in this nation, in response to the July 1 killing of 32-year-old Shaki Peters.

On July 3, 27-year-old Bree Black was killed in Pompano Beach, Florida, making her the fourth Black transgender woman to be murdered in eight days.

Transgender women of color, particularly Black transgender women, are disproportionately victimized. Eight out of the 21 reported murders this year have been Black transgender women.

Another alarming trend on the Human Rights Campaigns list of lives lost is that at least five of the killings occurred in Puerto Rico. No other states appear on the list more than once, with the exceptions of Texas and Florida, which both appear twice.

This is not only a murder epidemic.

In May, Kristian Rouse, an 18-year-old Black transgender male, was found by his mother and sister severely beaten in their apartment. Read the rest