Anti-LGBT Violence has Increased part 2: People of Color and Transgender people are Highly Targeted

Remember my posts about the number of Anti-LGBT violence in 2010? Well, a chunk of those incidents were directed towards people of color and 44% of them were transgender women.

Here's more:

The study also found that transgender people and people of color are each twice as likely to experience violence or discrimination as non-transgender white people. Transgender people of color are also almost 2.5 times as likely to experience discrimination as their white peers.

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The NCAVP report found that half of those who experienced hate violence did not contact the police after their attack. The report further found that 25.4 percent of transgender women did not file a report. So what can be done to reduce these rates of violence against LGBT people and communities of color?

The Audre Lorde Project is among the groups that organize LGBT people in communities of color that are increasingly looking beyond law enforcement and the criminal justice system for a solution. The Safe OUTside the System Collective works with bodegas, businesses and organizations within Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and surrounding areas to create safe spaces for LGBT people of color to curb violence.

“What’s true and important is our communities have been and continue to organize around issues of harassment—whether it’s neighborhood or community harassment or [harassment] by the police,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Audre Lorde Project.

There are so many things we need to do. Please read the report to look at the solutions, maybe even create some of your own.

Our community needs us.

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University of South Florida gives Transgender Students New Living Options

After a transgender student was harassed by other students in a residence hall, the University of South Florida decided to offer transgender students a safer alternative to live on campus.

Here's more:

Beginning Thursday, students can identify themselves as male, female or transitioning on their housing applications. Anyone who checks transitioning can live alone, with a friend or with a randomly assigned roommate. A student's choice of transitioning won't be disclosed to any randomly selected roommate without permission.

Then, in the spring, the Tampa school will begin a pilot program with several "gender-neutral" dorm rooms for any student who wants to live with another student of a different gender. Rooming with romantic partners will be discouraged. 

I hope this helps the transgendered students. Kudos to USF for setting this up.

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In Massachusetts: Rep. Sheila Harrington thinks Trangender people Change Genders a Regular Basis

Rep. Sheila Harrington

Massachusetts’ Judiciary Committee is in talks for a Transgender Rights bill. However, it is clear that some legislators are not fully educated about transgender issues, like Rep. Sheila Harrington.

Here's the scoop from Think Progress:

While some opponents warned that the bills would lead to sexual assaults in bathrooms, undermine morality, harm children, and overburden state residents, others demonstrated their unfamiliarity with transgender issues entirely. In the clip below, Massachusetts Rep. Sheila Harrington (R) asks two transgender witnesses if transgender people are able to change their genders on a “day-to-day basis”:


HARRINGTON: “I’m not sure if this means that on a day-to-day basis you could be appearing as a woman or appearing as a man, but in your own identity and your own feeling of self you would be the other gender….”


GUNNER SCOTT (Dir. of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition): “I think one thing to understand is that transgender people, first many of us struggle with this for many years and at the end of the day we want to blend in and not stand out. As somebody who identifies as a man, presents as a man, according to my birth certificate it still says I’m female. And so what the opponents would say is that someone like me who looks male should be going into the women’s room. And I know that that’s wrong because I would make women uncomfortable.” 

See here: