Just How Often Does Transphobia Lead to Murder?

I’ve noticed that a common talking point of the LGBTQ activists is to portray transgender people as suffering some epidemic of murders because of transphobia.  Recently, I showed you such an example where transgender activists portrayed the murder of fellow activist as transphobic violence.  Yet thanks to one sole web site that did a little digging, it turns out the murderer was a member of the LGBTQ community and transphobia had nothing to do with the murder.

Because of that story, I have become more cynical and skeptical about stories of transgender murders being caused by transphobia.  And sure enough, we have another example to generate even more cynicism.

Recently, the murderer of a transgender woman (from 2018) was sentenced to life in prison.  This has sparked some news stories over the last few days, where the common activist spin is gently employed.  For example:

Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, 42, was an active member of the transgender community, the founder of both the Miss Trans America and Miss Trans New England pageants.

She spoke out last year on Nov. 20 – Transgender Day of Remembrance – in recognition of the dozens of transgender people killed in 2017 and years prior.

She is the first known transgender person to be killed this year, according to GLAAD.

Sure makes it sound like she was murdered because she was transgender, right?

Try this one:

In a statement in response to the sentencing, local LGBTQ group Berkshire Stonewall Community Coalition said, “Christa’s life made our county, commonwealth, and country more beautiful.”

“The message is so often that transgender lives are less valuable, and deserve less justice. That message is disturbing, painful, and unjust, and has real consequences to the lives of those in our community,” the group’s leaders said. “This message starts to change when justice is served. But nothing can replace what was lost to our community when Christa was killed.”

And let’s not forget:

According to the Human Rights Campaign, Christa Leigh was the first known transgender person to be killed in 2018.

In fact, if we go to that activist web site, we read this:

Steele-Knudslien’s death comes after HRC Foundation and the Trans People of Color Coalition released a report documenting the senseless acts of violence that made 2017 the deadliest year on record for transgender people, particularly for trans women of color.

and

Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien, 42, was found dead in her home on January 5 in North Adams, Massachusetts. Steele-Knudslien organized and produced the Miss Trans New England and other pageants, and was loved and known by many in both the local and national trans community.

Yet despite all this spin, it’s rather obvious that transphobia had nothing to do with the murder of Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien.  How so?  The murderer was Christa’s husband.

Yes, the supportive husband.  When sleeping together, they got into some domestic dispute and the husband killed the transgender wife.  No sane, rational person would think transphobia was behind this murder.

Which leads me to a question.  Could it be that each and every example of a transgender person being murdered is merely assumed, by activists, to be a hate crime rooted in transphobia?  That is, are there any examples of a transgender person being murdered where the murder does not involve transphobia?   Or are transgender people the only people in existence who don’t get murdered for the reasons the rest of us get murdered and instead only get murdered because of their gender identification?

Consider the numbers.

According to Wikipedia, the US murder rate was 5.0 per 100,000. Also, according to Wikipedia, approximately 1.4 million adults are transgender.  So, using the overall murder rate, we would expect about 70 transgender murders as part of the overall murder rate.  Yet according to the Human Rights Campaign activist group, now shown to be willing to include false positives in its scoring,  “At least 22 trans people killed in 2019.”

So while the US murder rate was 5 per 100,000, among the transgender community, its only about 1.6 per 100,000.