What About Black Trans Women?

And other fairytales from the "kindness is everything" crew

“What about black trans women?” They asked me, when I said that trans-identified people are the most protected class in the country. “They’re the most vulnerable!” They cried.

It’s true that if you Google black trans women you will be treated to pages upon pages of news items validating this claim. You don’t even need to include pesky words like violence, murder, threatened or vulnerable. Google trans genocide. Copious articles ooze from mainstream media, liberal universities, progressive organizations and of course, LGBTQQIAA2S++ websites.

Most self-identified Liberals would never question this wealth of so-called evidence, especially when Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and other elected Democrats declare again and again (and again) that trans women of color are being “systematically hunted.”

Knowing what I know now, I cannot take this claim at face value. According to one of the few articles countering the narrative, there is…

…no evidence of a pattern or “epidemic” of violence. It is certainly false that trans women are being “systematically hunted” or that black trans women are specifically targeted.

Of course it would be considered transphobic to look for statistics. Only a bigot would ask, is that true? The same article linked above, by Chad Felix Greene—a gay man who once struggled with gender dysphoria—states that:

After reviewing the 118 [transgender murder] cases with all available information, four appear to have been directly anti-trans-motivated. (emphasis mine.)

Anyone who buys the notion of trans genocide does not take the time to look at the facts or even question how a narrative highlighting police brutality against black men transformed almost imperceptibly into a story of black trans women being hunted and murdered into extinction. The BLM movement holds the clues.

When we’re not paying attention, it’s easy to be clouded by our own impulses to be kind, to avoid being labeled a bigot, or worse, a Republican. I was clouded when George Floyd was killed. Fully compliant, I took a knee for eight minutes and forty-six seconds at my local march, only a dimly aware that a nugget of discomfort lay festering in my gut. I had the queasy feeling that if I weren’t sufficiently obedient, something terrible would befall my home, my family. I cut out letters from black construction paper and taped ‘Black Lives Matter’ to my front door. Please pass over my house when you roll through our neighborhood, I thought and then unthought.

Now I liken that whole dark period to emotional blackmail. But back then, I wasn’t ready to question the narrative. I was afraid to believe anything other than what I was told, which is that the oppressive white patriarchy was killing oppressed black men. I believed in the movement.

Here’s a screenshot of my social media during the summer of 2020—

my Insta feed from summer, 2020

It requires very little fuss to believe repetitive, hypnotic media sound bites. Take Muhlaysia Booker, a black trans woman from Dallas who was fatally shot in 2019. Arrested for her murder was Kendrell Lavar Lyles, an alleged serial killer who frequented transgender prostitutes. It’s one of those classically spun tales from the left, where the victim is said to have been targeted based solely upon identity, but if you dig just below the surface, a vaster and far less convenient story emerges—one that includes drug use, prostitution, black-on-black crime, poverty and a fender bender.

If trans women of color are more vulnerable than the general population, it’s not merely because of their racial and gender identity. To dismiss the surrounding environmental factors in favor of individual identity is to manipulate evidence into a narrative that furthers a political cause, and let’s be clear. Political causes are for votes and power, not solutions. Because if you haven’t noticed, things are only getting worse. Unless you’re REI.

Then there are the actual numbers. The following are American death tallies only: In 2022, the HRC recorded 34 transgender fatalities. Q Salt Lake Magazine reported 47 transgender killings. In 2021, 4,970 females were murdered or killed, while 17,970 males were murdered or killed. So what is it about 47 killings—which may not even have been fueled by trans hatred—that translates as an epidemic?

You might argue that the trans population is so much smaller than the general population. It is. So okay, pressing on—this is where we must roll up our sleeves and math.

In 2022, 333,287,557 people lived in the United States, 1.6 million of whom identified as transgender or gender nonconforming. Of the 1,600,000 trans adults and children, 0.0029375% were killed. Splitting 333,287,557 into equal halves—male and female—gives us 166,643,778.5. Of that number, 0.00298240957% were murdered women. 0.0107834809% were murdered men. The adjusted numbers tell the same story—there is no epidemic of trans genocide.

This all brings to mind the recent case of Jordan Neely. A black homeless man in “mental distress” plus a white “perpetrator” equals the perfect Liberal narrative, minus the facts, which are too complicated when it comes to the mainstream media. The same can be said for Audrey Hale, Anderson Lee Aldrich, and most recently, Kimbrady Carriker, whose story continues to unfold.

Finally, there are cases you will never see in the mainstream media, but that journalists like Graham Linehan and Reduxx report on daily. These include many murders and sexual assaults committed by self-identified transgender women, all of whom are biological males. Go ahead. Take a look. It’s not pretty. And definitely not convenient.

If you still don’t believe that mainstream media is biased to protect, uplift and glorify marginalized populations while diminishing ‘cisheteronormativity,’ try this experiment. Do a Google image search of black people. Then search images of white people. Then gay people. Then straight people. Then trans people. Then cis people. How about able-bodied people. Etc. Notice anything strange? (Thank you to Alan Wolan for that mind-melter. His podcast, The Genius of Thomas Sowell is a favorite.)

Also worth pondering: do you know what race/sex is most likely to commit suicide? (Hint: it’s not black trans women.) In fact, the answer might surprise you.

😱