In 2018, We Must Look Beyond Numbers to Stop Anti-Trans Violence

Christa Leigh Steele-Knudslien was a beloved activist in the New England transgender community. She helped launch the first New England Trans Pride event years ago, and later helped create the Miss Trans New England Pageant and produce other pageants.

She also became the first known transgender person to be murdered in the United States in 2018. Her husband has been charged with murder, drawing attention to the grave problem of intimate partner violence affecting LGBTQ communities.

Thus begins the grim business of trying to count the dead for yet another year. The federal government data on deaths and crime does not count victims based on gender identity, so all we can do is try to count the deaths we know of.

Read more at NCTE's Medium page.

By National Center for Transgender Equality