Report on US transgender deaths

At least 32 transgender and gender-nonconforming people have been killed in the United States, this year, the Human Rights Campaign announced, Wednesday, in its annual report ahead of the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Transgender people of color account for 81% of known victims, this year, and 59% were Black. Trans women are disproportionately represented, as they have been in years past, also comprising 81% of the deaths recorded at the time of publication.

The Human Rights Campaign has documented at least 302 violent deaths of transgender and gender-nonconforming people since the LGBTQ advocacy organization began tracking such fatalities, in 2013 — the same year the FBI began tracking hate crimes against transgender people.

The victims have been “overwhelmingly Black, under 35 and killed with a firearm,” the report states.

Black transgender women, such as Shawmaynè Giselle Marie, a 27-year-old nursing assistant killed, in June, in Gulfport, Miss., comprise 63% of all recorded victims, since 2013.

This week is Transgender Awareness Week and leads into Sunday’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, an international observance honoring those killed by anti-transgender violence and drawing attention to the threats trans people face.

The Human Rights Campaign notes that the number of fatalities is likely an undercount because the deaths of trans people often go unreported or the victims are misgendered in news or police reports. The data does not encompass those who died by suicide.