Monday, July 18, 2011

Anti-LGBT Violence has Increased part 2: People of Color and Transgender people are Highly Targeted


Remember my posts about the number of Anti-LGBT violence in 2010? Well, a chunk of those incidents were directed towards people of color and 44% of them were transgender women.

Here's more:

The study also found that transgender people and people of color are each twice as likely to experience violence or discrimination as non-transgender white people. Transgender people of color are also almost 2.5 times as likely to experience discrimination as their white peers.
....
The NCAVP report found that half of those who experienced hate violence did not contact the police after their attack. The report further found that 25.4 percent of transgender women did not file a report. So what can be done to reduce these rates of violence against LGBT people and communities of color?
The Audre Lorde Project is among the groups that organize LGBT people in communities of color that are increasingly looking beyond law enforcement and the criminal justice system for a solution. The Safe OUTside the System Collective works with bodegas, businesses and organizations within Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and surrounding areas to create safe spaces for LGBT people of color to curb violence.

“What’s true and important is our communities have been and continue to organize around issues of harassment—whether it’s neighborhood or community harassment or [harassment] by the police,” said Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Audre Lorde Project.
There are so many things we need to do. Please read the report to look at the solutions, maybe even create some of your own.

Our community needs us.

source

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seriously!! Bur people fear them. All they have to do is fight back like they mean it.

Kyle Leach said...

I saw this too V. As long as the mainstream keeps perpetuating the racial fear as the norm, racial minorities will be disproportionally effected by economic and social factors. We have a long way to go. Until then we have to be vigilant strong activists for that part of our community and society at large.

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Viktor is a small town southern boy living in Los Angeles. You can find him on Twitter, writing about pop culture, politics, and comics. He’s the creator of the graphic novel StrangeLore and currently getting back into screenwriting.