Despite quarantines around the world, the violence against and murder of Transgender people continues unabated, and is actually worse.  This is no doubt fed by the rise of rightwing “populism”, religious fanaticism, the increase in police violence, and the uneducated ignorance of the populace in many countries.

Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, 2020 will be the grimmest yet.  There were at least 331 victims in 2019; I suspect 400 in 2020.  If estimates are accurate that 0.3% of people are Transgender, that means there are roughly one million in the US alone.  Thirty murders per million may sound low compared to the US average of roughly 42 murders per million, but you have to take into account the murders that have gone unreported (the victims’ bodies not found) or cases where the dead are deadnamed and misgendered.

Bigots, rightwingnuts, cops and other human garbage in the US have murdered thirty Transgender people in the first eight months of 2020, a number likely to surpass the worst totals in recent years.

30 Transgender People Have Now Been Violently Murdered In America This Year

30 transgender or gender non-conforming people have now been fatally shot or killed in violent attacks this year. 2020 is now the most violent year against transgender people in America for five years.

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is now reporting Michelle (Michellyn) Ramos Vargas was found dead of multiple gunshot wounds in San Germán, Puerto Rico.

Some reports identify her as Michelle and some as Michellyn. But Vargas, who was only in her mid-30s, was studying to become a nurse at Ponce Paramedical College.

She joins a long list of mostly black and Latinx transgender women believed to be, at least, the 30th violent death of a transgender or gender non-conforming person this year in the U.S.

It follows a spate of transgender murders this year, with three killed just in the last two weeks.

[. . .]

“Racism, transphobia and misogyny too often play a role in the deaths of transgender and gender non-conforming people, especially trans women of colour. As we are mourning the loss of Michelle, we must do more to bring this violence to an end. We must work together with lawmakers at all levels to ensure that policies have protections in place for trans people, and we must work to support our trans friends and family.”

In Brazil, their human garbage have murdered 129 people for being Transgender in the first eight months (205 murders per million Transgender people).  That’s more than the entire year of 2019.  It’s a safe bet most of the murderers are cops.

Yes, suicides count as murders because the victims were driven to it by societies that tolerate, permit, and even encourage hate and violence.

Reported murders, suicides of trans people soar in Brazil

The number of transgender people killed in Brazil this year has risen by 70% over last year, according to research underscoring the South American country’s rank as the world’s deadliest place for trans people.

The 129 trans people murdered since January already exceeds the total killings in 2019, according to a report by the National Association of Transvestites and Transsexuals (ANTRA), a local activist organization.

The number of trans people – 16 – who died by suicide in the first six months of 2020 is a third higher than last year as well, ANTRA said.

“The outlook is bleak,” said Bruna Benevides, a trans activist and author of ANTRA’s report, via messaging service WhatsApp.

“The death of trans people … starts long before the trigger is pulled. It’s in the insults, the evictions from home, the lack of job opportunities, it’s at school where gender is never discussed,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Poland, Russia, Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries with cops and governments that are violently anti-Transgender are unlikely to keep accurate statistics or treat us as human beings.  And when you take into account the lockdowns in most countries and how fewer people have been in public, the statistics are all the more alarming.

I have seen a growing number of US Transgender people in facebook groups talk about getting guns.  They are scared and stuck between the choice of being alive in prison, falsely convicted of “murder” when they defended themselves, or being murdered themselves.  They’re openly saying that killing is better than being killed.  This item is from 2018, but still relevant:

The Trans Women Turning to Firearms for Survival

More trans women are taking up arms than before to protect themselves. But even the simple act of self-preservation can be deemed aggression to conservatives.

s.e. smith

Jan 3, 2018

Kayla Harris, an Oakland-based woman who started out with LGBT gun rights organization Pink Pistols before splitting away to form the Rouge Rifles with a colleague, has been a gun owner for a very long time. But it wasn’t until the election that she started exploring the possibility of supporting fellow LGBT people who wanted to learn more about guns. “After the [Pulse] shooting and after the election, I knew tons of people who were suddenly interested in guns who never had been before,” Harris says.

Harris carried her interest in firearms through transition, and is a certified firearms instructor—one reason she pursued and maintained her certification was a desire to give back to her community. “Gun owners shouldn’t just default to the white guy who lives in Wisconsin or whatever,” she says. “That’s not the only person who should own guns. For disadvantaged and marginalized people, it equalizes force.”

[. . .]

“When I teach a defense class, the point of the class is to kill someone,” Harris says. “If you’re a trans woman, the person you’re killing is likely to be someone society values more than you.”

Emphasis mine.

And this is without counting all the “legal” violence against Transgender people (i.e. refusal to allow name change and gender recognition, forced sterilization, denial of basic rights such as employment, housing and legal protection, etc.).