LGBT murders

Murder statistics have been extracted from NCAVP reports1 found on Reports - NYC Anti-Violence Project (n.d.) web page.

Data for year 2018 onwards were sourced from HRC web pages (Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2021, n.d.; Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2022, n.d.; Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2018, n.d.; Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2019, n.d.; Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2020, n.d.). They count trans murders exclusively.

It is estimated by Gates (2011) that there are 4,030,946 GB men, 4,007,834 LB women and 697,529 transgender people. Flores et al. (2016) gives higher estimate for population of transgender people at 1,397,150. If we combine these estimates and use the higher estimate of transgender people, we get 9,435,930 LGBT people. Meerwijk & Sevelius (2017) estimates that transgender people are 390 per 100,000 which is lower estimate than Flores et al. (2016).

Gallup poll (Newport, 2018) LGBT population ratio estimates together with United States Census Bureau’s population estimates allows us to estimate LGBT population between years 2012 and 2017. The same Gallup % is used to estimate LGBT population for years 2018 and beyond. Gallup updated their ratio estimate each year between 2021 and 2023 (Jones, 2022, 2023, 2021). This newer estimate is used for year 2020 and beyond. USA population for years 2000-2010 was extracted from US Census Bureau (n.d.) tables.

year murders PNS pop.lgbt pop.t total lgbt.rate t.rate
1997 14 – 8,736,309 1,064,310 14 0.16 1.3
1998 26 – 8,736,309 1,076,790 26 0.3 2.4
1999 29 – 8,736,309 1,089,270 29 0.33 2.7
2000 17 – 8,736,309 1,100,433 17 0.19 1.5
2001 10 – 8,736,309 1,111,378 10 0.11 0.9
2002 12 – 8,736,309 1,121,738 12 0.14 1.1
2003 18 – 8,736,309 1,131,420 18 0.21 1.6
2004 13 – 8,736,309 1,141,940 13 0.15 1.1
2005 11 – 8,736,309 1,152,514 11 0.13 0.95
2006 10 – 8,736,309 1,163,681 10 0.11 0.86
2007 21 – 8,736,309 1,174,801 21 0.24 1.8
2008 29 – 8,736,309 1,185,966 29 0.33 2.4
2009 22 – 8,736,309 1,196,408 22 0.25 1.8
2010 27 – 8,736,309 1,206,463 27 0.31 2.2
2011 30 – 8,736,309 1,215,071 30 0.34 2.5
2012 25 – 10,989,764 1,224,573 25 0.23 2
2013 18 – 11,384,442 1,233,314 18 0.16 1.5
2014 20 – 11,789,033 1,242,627 20 0.17 1.6
2015 24 – 12,520,553 1,252,055 24 0.19 1.9
2016 28 49 13,259,643 1,261,283 77 0.58 6.1
2017 52 – 14,657,363 1,270,304 52 0.35 4.1
2018 26 – 14,739,144 1,277,392 26 0.18 2
2019 26 – 14,810,910 1,283,612 26 0.18 2
2020 44 – 18,589,131 1,294,600 44 0.24 3.4
2021 57 – 23,618,865 2,328,620 57 0.24 2.4
2022 32 – 24,064,541 2,005,378 32 0.13 1.6
LGBT+ murders, LGBT+ murder rate per hundred thousand, and trans murder rate per hundred thousand in history if all vistims were trans. PNS = Pulse nightclub shooting.

LGBT+ murders, LGBT+ murder rate per hundred thousand, and trans murder rate per hundred thousand in history if all vistims were trans. PNS = Pulse nightclub shooting.

Trans murder rate per hundred thousand in history if all vistims were trans. Red line shows value 4.9, USA murder rate in 2015.

Trans murder rate per hundred thousand in history if all vistims were trans. Red line shows value 4.9, USA murder rate in 2015.

Assuming all calculations and data are correct, the murder rate per 100,000 of LGBT+ people is less than 1 which is better than in general population of USA where the rate was 4.9 in 2015. Even if we assume all murder victims were trans, which they were not, and compute the murder rate against the higher trans people population estimate we still get “only” rate below general population rate, except for year 2016 due to the Pulse nightclub shooting. And again, not all of the victims were trans. Also, the Pulse nightclub shooting did not seem to have been about anit-LGBTQ hate (Coaston, 2018).

References

Coaston, J. (2018). New evidence shows the Pulse nightclub shooting wasn’t about anti-LGBTQ hate. Vox. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/4/5/17202026/pulse-shooting-lgbtq-trump-terror-hate
Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2021. (n.d.). Human Rights Campaign. Retrieved 6 March 2023, from https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2021
Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Community in 2022. (n.d.). Human Rights Campaign. Retrieved 6 March 2023, from https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2022
Flores, A. R., Herman, J. L., Gates, G. J., & Brown, T. N. T. (2016). How Many Adults Identify as Transgender in the United States? The Williams Institute, UCLA School Of Law. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/How-Many-Adults-Identify-as-Transgender-in-the-United-States.pdf
Gates, G. J. (2011). How Many People are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender? The Williams Institute, UCLA School Of Law. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/09h684x2.pdf
Jones, J. M. (2022). LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-ticks-up.aspx
Jones, J. M. (2023). U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/470708/lgbt-identification-steady.aspx
Jones, J. M. (2021). LGBT Identification Rises to 5.6% in Latest U.S. Estimate. Gallup, Inc. https://news.gallup.com/poll/329708/lgbt-identification-rises-latest-estimate.aspx
Meerwijk, E. L., & Sevelius, J. M. (2017). Transgender Population Size in the United States: a Meta-Regression of Population-Based Probability Samples. American Journal of Public Health, 107(2), e1–e8. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303578
Newport, F. (2018). In U.S., Estimate of LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%. Gallup, Inc. https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population-rises.aspx
Population Clock. (n.d.). United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 18 November 2018, from https://www.census.gov/popclock/
Reports - NYC Anti-Violence Project. (n.d.). New York City Anti-Violence Project. Retrieved 12 August 2017, from https://avp.org/resources/reports/
US Census Bureau. (n.d.). National Intercensal Tables: 2000-2010. The United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 25 September 2020, from https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/intercensal-2000-2010-national.html
Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2018. (n.d.). Human Rights Campaign. Retrieved 2 May 2020, from https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2018/
Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2019. (n.d.). Human Rights Campaign. Retrieved 2 May 2020, from https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in-2019/
Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2020. (n.d.). Human Rights Campaign. Retrieved 30 October 2021, from https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-trans-and-gender-non-conforming-community-in-2020

  1. The NCAVP reports often have different number of murders in report for year Y and for year Y in year Y+1 report. The numbers below are always the numbers reported by the Y+1 report on assumption that the newer report was corrected and has better classified data.↩︎