Under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the FBI began collecting data on hate crimes committed on the basis of gender identity last year. The FBI presented that data for the first time in this year’s annual Hate Crimes Statistics for 2013 report. Its findings are underwhelming: for 2013, the FBI reported only 31 hate crimes based on gender identity.
According to the Human Right Campaign, the FBI data “does not paint a complete picture of hate crimes against LGBT Americans because of two significant factors. First, under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the FBI only began collecting data on hate crimes committed on the basis of gender identity last year and were reported for the first time in this year’s report. HRC remains concerned that the low number of responses for hate crimes based on gender identity and gender non-conformity — 31 incidents — suggests that law enforcement are mischaracterizing hate based crimes as ones based on either sexual orientation or gender. Second, current statistics only provide a partial snapshot of hate crimes in America. As in past years, the vast majority of the participating agencies (88%) reported zero hate crimes. This means that law enforcement in those participating agencies affirmatively reported to the FBI that no hate crime incidents occurred in their jurisdiction.”
In its report on hate violence in 2013, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reported “twelve hate motivated homicides of transgender women of color in 2013, many of them occurring through the months of June through September,” and over 300 incidents of anti-transgender bias.
For a thoughtful and moving discussion of the intersection between violence, race, and gender identity, and a way forward, check out this brief talk by transgender activist, Laverne Cox. Highly recommended.