Philadelphia murder is latest in “epidemic of violence” against trans community, city says

At least 28 trans and gender non-conforming people have been killed this year

Students hold up signs at transgender rights protest in Chicago, 2017 (AFP via Getty Images)

Mia Green, a 29 year old who fatally shot in Philadelphia on Monday, is the latest transgender woman killed in what the city calls an “epidemic of violence” against trans people.

NBC reports that  during a Monday morning traffic stop, police found Green, who was shot in the neck, in the passenger seat of a car driven by Abdullah lbn El-Amin Jaamia, 28, who was charged with murder on Tuesday.

“This latest act of violence against a member of our community is a somber reminder of the epidemic of violence against trans individuals,” the city said in a statement from its Office of LGBT affairs. “The countless painful losses experienced during this year alone—especially within our transgender communities of color— remind us that there is much work to be done in the pursuit of full equality, respect, and justice for us all.”

The shocking case follows another killing earlier in the year in Philadelphia, when Dominique Rem’mie Fells, a black trans woman, was found floating dismembered in the Schuylkill River in West Philadelphia in June. Police are searching for a suspect, Akhenaton Jones, 36, in connection with the case.

Authorities in Puerto Rico also reported on Wednesday that a trans woman was fatally shot in the island’s southwest, the sixth such killing this year, the Associated Press reports.

Trans people, particularly people of color, face disproportionate rates of violence across the country. According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 28 trans and gender non-conforming people have been killed in 2020, which it cautions is likely lower than the true count, and a majority of them have been Black and Latinx. In 2019, 25 were killed, and 91 percent were black women, HRC says.

Because of interrelated issues like poverty, family rejection, and violence, trans people across America face high rates of mental health challenges and homelessness as well.

More than half of trans and nonbinary youth in 2020 seriously considered suicide, according to the Trevor Project, which says it conducted the largest U.S. LGTBQ mental health survey ever.

The Trump administration has pushed to roll back rules that punish homeless shelters which engage in gender or sexual identity discrimination. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson, during a 2019 visit to the San Francisco HUD office, used offensive stereotypes to warn about “big, hairy men” to infiltrate women’s homeless shelters.