The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) today released their annual national research report on hate violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) and HIV-affected communities. In August 2017, NCAVP recorded the highest number of anti-LGBTQ homicides in their 20-year history of tracking and released a mid-year report to raise awareness of this disturbing increase. Since the release of that report in August of 2017, the number of reported homicides continued to increase, reaching a total of 52 reported anti-LGBTQ homicides in all of 2017 – the highest number ever recorded and an 86% increase from 2016.
Said Beverly Tillery, Executive Director of the Anti-Violence Project (AVP): “This report is a wake-up call for all of us. Our communities live in an increasingly hostile and dangerous climate, after a year of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policies coming from the White House, Federal government agencies, state and local sources and in our communities across the country. Anti-LGBTQ violence has long been a crisis, but NCAVP has watched the escalation of violence this past year with great concern. I urge everyone to read the stories and look at the photos of the 52 individuals lost to hate violence in 2017 – they are our friends, family, co-workers and fellow LGBTQ community members. NCAVP will continue to say their names and re-commits to doing all we can to prevent hate violence and support survivors. We must bring more attention and action to deal with this epidemic of violence and work across all of our diverse communities to protect those most vulnerable and stand up to the hostile forces that have created this unacceptable climate of hate.”
Report summary:
· The victims of these hate violence related homicides have overwhelmingly been transgender women and queer, bi, or gay cisgender men,
· There was a significant increase of reports of homicides of queer, bi, or gay cisgender men, from 4 reports in 2016 to 20 reports in 2017,
· For the last five years NCAVP has documented a consistent and steadily rising number of reports of homicides of transgender women of color, which continued into 2017,
· In 2017, NCAVP collected information on 27 hate-violence related homicides of transgender and gender non-conforming people this year, compared to 19 reports for 2016,
· 22 of these homicides were of transgender women of color; and
· Of the total number of homicides in 2017, 71% (n=37) of the victims were people of color: 31 (60%) of the victims were Black, 4 (8%) were Latinx, 2 (4%) were Asian, and 1 (2%) was Native.
The full report can be found here: https://avp.org/Crisisofhate and contains additional information and a narrative of each case recorded.