Thread by @AlyssaM_InfoSec

FORTY SEVEN

Forty-seven trans people have been violently killed so far in 2021. While this number represents an increasing trend, let's talk about what that number doesn't tell us.

#TDOR #tdor2021

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* These are violent crimes, meaning someone else took their lives. This number does not reflect those that took their own lives as a result of unmanageable pressures of discrimination, abandonment, homelessness, forced conversion therapy, etc.

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* This number only includes those situations where Law Enforcement documents the victim as transgender. It does not include those killed where police and families hid the gender identity of the victim. This is a common occurrence and skews the numbers heavily.

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* This number does not tell you how many perpetrators get away with murdering transgender people because the police aren't motivated to investigate or the perpetrator is allowed to use the "trans/gay panic" defense to escape justice.

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* This number doesn't tell you how disproportionately this violence impacts transgender people of color. A majority of these deaths and other violent crimes are committed against trans women of color in particular. This only furthers our society's apathy toward this violence.

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* This number doesn't even touch on non-fatal violent crimes, sexual assaults, etc. that trans people face every day, let alone the ones that don't even get reported because trans people can't trust law enforcement to protect them.

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* This number doesn't tell the story of evictions, refusals from homeless shelters, firings from jobs, and other discrimination that occurs every day because of a lack of protection for transgender people in our laws.

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* This number doesn't tell you about the many medically necessary (as deemed by doctors world-wide) procedures that trans people are forced to find a way to pay for out of pocket because insurance companies refuse to pay.

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* This number doesn't say anything about the difficulty in funding research to understand and better treat gender dysphoria because the extremist right has blocked so many of the pathways for such research.

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So as we come to a close on Transgender Day of Remembrance 2021, please take a few moments to find some compassion and empathy. While you can't understand what it is like to be transgender, I'm sure you can at least imagine what it would be like to go through life facing

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all of these challenges and more. Before you dismiss it, deem it not your issue, or think there's nothing you can do to help, remember how many people every year who could be contributing so much to our world, are instead forced to live hidden in plain sight.

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I beg of you, please be an ally. Please seek to share understanding, support, and love with all your siblings in this world. You never know who you might just be a beacon of hope for at the very moment they needed it most.

/FIN