Black trans women are killed at almost the same rate as black men

submitted by pennyheax from self.GenderCritical

The huge difference in the murder rate of transwomen who are white vs. those of color should be a big signal that generally the reasons for their murders are more often linked to poverty and race rather than their trans identity. So I looked up and crunched the numbers.

Black trans women have a 1 in 2600 chance of being murdered, which works out to rate 38.5 per 100k. Meanwhile, the homicide rate for black MALE victims is 37.1 per 100k.

Both these numbers are tragic, but suffering is not the exclusive domain of transpeople as they would have us believe.

Sources:

https://www.wnyc.org/story/murder-rate-above-average-counting-transgender-murders-proves-difficult/

https://www.law.com/ctlawtribune/2020/01/03/on-covering-murder-and-race-the-media-must-do-better/

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[–]CaliforniGinger 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah, they are mostly killed by long time lovers (not men who are surprised they aren't women) and it's still not as high as the 200 per 100k rate for prostitutes in general. It's terrible there's a murder rate for anyone, but these cry bullies need to quit with the multiple days of remembrance and 'EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE' nonsense.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Are you talking about the homicide rates in the US specifically?

If you are, and you go to more reliable and probing sources than the laughable ones you linked to, I believe you'll find that in the USA, today and in the recent past, black males who identify as trans are significantly LESS likely to die of homicide than other black males of the same age, socioeconomic status, birthplace, current area of residence, education, etc.

A more accurate title for your thread would be: In the USA, black 'transwomen' are killed at much lower rates than other black men.

[–]pennyheax[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Will you please provide your sources? I had trouble finding good ones about the rate of murder for black transwomen.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Again, you've avoided the question of whether you are speaking about homicide rates in the USA or some other country.

But if you're speaking of homicide rates in the USA, the facts are that using HRC data and FBI data, the rates of homicide/murder per 100K pop in 2016 were as follows:

0.8 all females who are trans; 1.6 all trans people; 2.1 all males who are trans; 2.1 all females; 5.0 black females; 5.4 all US population; 7.4 males; 18.3 black people; 32.7 black males; 204.0 prostitutes

You are claiming that black TIMs die of homicide at almost the same rate as other black men. But the actual stats show that they are killed in homicides at a tiny fraction of the rate that other black men are: 2.1/100,000 versus 32.7/100,000

[–]pennyheax[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The links I provided both state in the first paragraph that their statistics are for the USA.

You have provided the murder rate of ALL transgender people, not the murder rate of BLACK transwomen, which is the population I'm interested in because it is often trotted out as evidence of an "epidemic" of violence. I checked through the twitter thread that you linked, and I could not find a specific quote that addressed the murder rate of black transwomen. If I missed something or if you have another source, please share it.

[–]MarkTwainiac 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The data is not being collected in the way you, I and others want or prefer. Nearly all the info about "TW" said to die by homicide in the US and elsewhere each year come from anecdotal press reports and trans lobbying orgs. The FBI and other bodies that collect crime stats customarily record victims and perpetrators by sex, not gender identity.

Local authorities (medical examiners, coroners, police departments) in the USA who report homicide stats to their state authorities, who in turn inform the FBI, long have customarily identified corpses by their very apparent sex (and nowadays their DNA as well) - not by their clothing, accessories, cosmetics, wigs, weaves, hairdos, manicures, etc. Yes, suspected homicide victims are usually photographed and examined initially by forensic experts in the condition the bodies were initially found in - with their clothing, cosmetics and prosthetics on, or not on as the case may be. But during autopsy, what's examined and recorded are the facts of naked bodies that have been stripped and washed down.

Since nearly all "transwomen" keep their male genitals and have clearly male skeletons and anatomy more generally, when they are autopsied they are probably going to be identified as male victims.

This might be even more likely for young black TIMs from disadvantaged backgrounds involved in prostitution and other criminal activities because they are far less likely to be able to afford to have costly surgeries like FFS and implants compared to rich white TIMs like Jenner, Pritzker and McBride. On the other hand, though, in many states like CA and NY nowadays, there are a slew of programs that cater to economically disadvantaged TIMs who are "of color" or recent immigrants, providing them with subsidized/free housing as well as a host of cosmetic surgeries paid for by Medicaid and local funds. (As was detailed in the 2015 NYTimes front page feature on all the benefits given to Kricket Thunderpussy Nimmons, a career criminal from the South who upon release from prison in Georgia relocated to NY for the free housing, HIV treatment and "sex reassignment" surgeries available to black males courtesy of the public purse.)

Now that people in the US are allowed to "identify as" the opposite sex on official ID documents in many states and municipalities, some coroners and medical examiners in different states and jurisdictions might be reporting TIM homicide victims as "TW" victims based on ID documents found on their bodies or in their homes. I dunno. But I've yet to see "TW" and "TM" as categories on any federal or state database of crime stats. Then again, I've only looked at a handful of US states - not all 50 of them and the additional territories.

The FBI does keep stats on hate crimes. In those, they've found that very few crimes in the US involve bias against people for their transgender or GNC status.

https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2018/topic-pages/victims

Your thread title seemed to be trying to make the case that black men who ID as women in the US are just as/nearly as likely to die of homicide as black males who do not ID as women. From what I've read from easy-to-find sources online, this is speculation. Could it be true? Sure. But we can't assume it's true until there's actual evidence.

I suspect the situation varies enormously depending on the specific part of the US. The standards by which male behaviors and "gender presentation" are judged as acceptable in NYC, San Francisco and West Hollywood are a far cry from those that prevail in small towns in the evangelical deep South.

Anecdotally, one thing I know from personal experience about the situation in USA cities like NYC and SF since the 1970s is that black - and Hispanic, and to a lesser extent Asian and white - men who used to be called transvestites long have been given a very wide berth by many/most other males of all races and sexual orientations. Because other men - including "plain vanilla" and upstanding gay men as well as highly criminal and sketchy straight and gay men of all races - generally saw TVs as "off," mentally unwell, quick to anger and violence, unreasonable and generally not worth messing with.

In your OP, you said further that the homicides of men who ID as women or trans are "linked to poverty and race rather than their trans identity." Perhaps I misunderstand, but I took that to mean you think that these men are being killed by socioeconomic forces, not by other men in acts of male-on-male lethal violence.

If you do see these homicides as being committed by other men in (more) acts of male-on-male violence, are you suggesting that black men who identify as trans are being killed primarily by men of other races and different economic strata than their own? I don't think the facts bear this out. Most black TIMs are killed by other black men of the same class - as is the case with black men who do not ID as trans. Which is consistent with all crime stats: most people who suffer violence do so at the hands of others with the same racial, ethnic, economic, geographical, religious etc characteristics. The major and only difference is SEX.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5551619/

https://twitter.com/tibby17/status/1279670900841947136

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/04/the-left-is-lying-about-a-hatred-and-violence-epidemic-against-transgender-people/

[–]pennyheax[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I used the 1 in 2600 number because it represents a claim that I commonly see made by TRAs. I think it's significant that, even when using their own (likely inflated) number, the homicide victim rate is still equal to that of black men. There are two implications of this. One is that the murder of black trans women isn't more of an "epidemic" than the murder of black males. The second is that perhaps their engagement in risky behaviors is more similar to males than females. Though to be fair, the causes of their murders are somewhat different from black males overall. If you look at a breakdown of what each black trans woman died of, then you tend to see one chunk involved in violent criminal activity, one chunk involved in sex work, and another chunk are victims of domestic violence.

In your OP, you said further that the homicides of men who ID as women or trans are "linked to poverty and race rather than their trans identity." Perhaps I misunderstand, but I took that to mean you think that these men are being killed by socioeconomic forces, not by other men in acts of male-on-male lethal violence. If you do see these homicides as being committed by other men in (more) acts of male-on-male violence, are you suggesting that black men who identify as trans are being killed primarily by men of other races and different economic strata than their own?

You misunderstood. Poverty and race simply means that growing up in the hood and doing hood shit is dangerous. Being killed by "socioeconomic forces" as it seems you're describing here wouldn't be recorded as murder.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://twitter.com/KProtein19/status/1279183444090781698

[–]GConly 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Homicide Rates of Transgender Individuals in the United States: 2010–2014

The overall homicide rate of transgender individuals was likely to be less than that of cisgender individuals, with 8 of 12 RR estimates below 1.0. However, the homicide rates of young transfeminine Black and Latina residents were almost certainly higher than were those of cisfeminine comparators, with all RR estimates above 1.0 for Blacks and all above 1.0 for Latinas.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The paper you cited is not a scientific or reliable source.

[–]pennyheax[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks, I saw this paper too, but I noticed that it compares their deaths against cisfemales and not cismales, which is what I was looking for.

[–]pennyheax[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Nevermind! I just found a relevant portion of the text, but it only counts for ages 15-34 years old and it's couched in so much uncertainty regarding how transfeminine deaths were recorded and whether or not they were underreported or not:

The 2010 to 2014 homicide rate per 100 000 for Black female US residents aged 15 to 34 years was 40.9 (95% CI = 39.3, 42.5) and for Black male US residents aged 15 to 34 years was 367 (95% CI = 363, 372).

Estimates of the Black transfeminine aged 15 to 34 years homicide rate per 100 000 during this period, assuming their deaths were recorded as male, ranged from 97.2, when assuming no undercount and a large transgender population, to 2920, when assuming 4 of 5 transgender deaths went unreported and a smaller transgender population. For Black transfeminine residents aged 15 to 34 years, assuming transfeminine deaths recorded female, no estimate gives a lower homicide rate than does that for all Black female residents aged 15 to 34 years, and 6 of 12 estimates give a lower homicide rate than does that for all Black male residents aged 15 to 34 years.

The 2010 to 2014 RR of homicide for Black transfeminine residents aged 15 to 34 years versus Black cisfeminine residents aged 15 to 34 years, assuming transfeminine deaths recorded female, ranged from 2.35, when assuming no undercount and a large transgender population, to 74.8, when assuming 4 of 5 transgender deaths went unreported and a smaller transgender population, with 0 of 12 estimates below 1.0.