Scope and Nature of Fatal Violence Against Transgender Individuals in the U.S.

“LGBT” is an umbrella term used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities altogether, but there is a broad variation in the active research about and the societal treatment of each of these letters. Specifically, while an extensive body of criminological research exists regarding the “LGB” population, studies examining crime and violence against the transgender community (i.e., the "T") are significantly more limited. This lack of research has limited our ability to understand the nature and scope of homicide against the transgender population, despite evidence that fatal violence against the transgender community has reached unprecedented levels in recent years. One reason for this lack of research is the dearth of existing data sources on violence against the transgender population. Following this, using open-source data, my research analyzes and describes transgender homicide in terms of victim, offender, and incident attributes. Importantly, this research also examines variation in the efficiency and efficacy of law enforcement handling.