Harassment

On the morning of February 24, 2020, Alexa Luciano Ruiz, a homeless Black and Puerto Rican trans woman, was fatally shot after being harassed for using a woman’s bathroom. Ruiz’s case is only one of over 2,343 murders worldwide of trans individuals between 2008 and 2016, with 165 bias-motivated homicides occurring in the United States. In 2019 alone, at least 26 trans individuals were murdered, 91% of whom were Black women, 81% of whom were under the age of 30, and 68% of whom lived in the South. The prevalence of hate crimes in this population may be underestimated given that there are no national surveillance systems tracking anti-trans homicides. In addition, many trans individuals underreport hate crimes to police because of real or anticipated ...