Monday, Joe Biden followed up the pardon of two turkeys (Biden's Effort to Pardon the Turkeys Goes Awry) with a third turkey-related act; he declared November 20 to be Transgender Day of Remembrance. "Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance," the announcement reads, "we are reminded that there is more to do meet that [italics are mine] promise, as we grieve the 26 transgender Americans whose lives were taken this year." Nothing says "I care" like a presidential announcement missing a word...or maybe it was a metaphor.
KJP: "Today, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we grieve the 26 transgender Americans who were killed this year. Year after year, we see that these victims are disproportionately black women and women of color." pic.twitter.com/yYtW3RdBBl
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) November 20, 2023
Transgender Day of Remembrance dates from 1999 and a website created by "transwoman" Gwendolyn Ann Smith to memorialize transgenders murdered due to "transphobia." This is the fourth time a US president has declared such a day. Barack Obama made the inaugural announcement in 2015 but skipped it in 2016. Biden accounts for the remainder. It marks the end of "Transgender Awareness Week," just in case that holiday season slipped your attention.
Since the whole idea of this "Day of Remembrance" seems to be that transpeople are uniquely targeted because of their lifestyle choice, it's only fair to take a look at the 26 lost souls the White House is honoring by an unedited statement and see if that is true.
Estimates of the number of transgenders in the US range from 0.5% to 1.0%; using one of the better numbers (see What Americans Get Wrong About Transgender People), there are about 1.3 million persons aged 13 and older who identify as transgender. That number is subject to rapid and unpredictable change. As we know, gender is malleable and exists on a spectrum. Converting that to a rate per 100,000 yields 2.
To place this in context, the all-causes homicide rate in the United States is 7.8 per 100,000. Offhand, I'd say that being trans was a lot safer than being just about anything else.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, this is the breakout.
Of the dead, 88% were "people of color, and 54% were black transgender women. The cause of death was a firearm in 73% of the cases, which is lower than the 80% of all homicide victims killed by firearms. A "romantic/sexual partner," friend, or family member was the killer in 47% of the cases. Half were called by their real names in police press releases or by the media, which may be even more heinous than being murdered.
Not all of the people on the list of deaths had any provable connection to being transgender. One died in a hit-and-run. Two were killed by security guards while committing crimes — one of those was killed while shoplifting from a Walgreens in San Francisco, and the DA ruled it self-defense.
one of the 26 'transgender americans' killed this year, DéVonnie J’Rae Johnson, tried to murder a security guard with a fire extinguisher and a screwdriver
— Gregg Re (@gregg_re) November 20, 2023
this is who the white house is honoring today as they spit on dead christians in nashville https://t.co/B3kNPzjO2P pic.twitter.com/0yoYRbkpb2
One was killed by Georgia State troopers when they were attacked at "Cop City" near Atlanta. In one case, detectives said the person's murder had nothing to do with their "gender identity."
So, if the chances of a transgender being murdered are less than those of any random person on the street, why does this "day of remembrance" even exist? When over 10% of the list are killed while committing a violent crime, and half of the remainder are killed by sexual partners who presumably knew their transgender status, why does this rate any more attention than any other homicide?
