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Talk:List of people killed for being transgender

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Semi-protected edit request on 25 Jul 2024

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Please add Pauly Likens, 14, whom was found to be murdered and dismembered on July 11th 2024. Investigations by Pennsylvania police charged her murderer - Dashawn Watkins, 29 - of first degree murder, aggravated assault, abuse of a corpse, and and tampering with evidence. BoopK (talk) 03:23, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Everything on Wikipedia needs a reliable source, so if this is to be added, we need a link to a report in a reliable news outlet. But that would not be enough – this article is a list of people killed for being transgender. There is nothing in your post which suggests that Pauly Likens was killed for being transgender, so this death would not come within the subject of this article. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:56, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
 Done - added with refs. Raladic (talk) 17:26, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Raladic:, you presumably read my reply to the IP about the fact that this article is a list of people killed for being transgender. And that is, of course, plain from the title of the article. And there is an edit notice which says:
The scope of this list is only deaths of transgender people where reliable sources report that the victim being transgender was (one of) the reasons why they were killed. This is not an article to list every person who was killed and transgender, especially if the killer is unknown and no sources contain no evidence of their motive. Any additions that fail these requirements will be removed.
Yet you have added an item which has no information that the deceased was killed for being transgender.
Why? Sweet6970 (talk) 21:33, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The sources make it clear that the DA consider it a hate crime and said they are looking into adding the charge of "ethnic intimidation", which is what PA has right now as it has no formal hate crime statute, but they clearly consider it part of the motive or else they wouldn't consider it. And as noted by the extra sentence, the Governor is working with the legislature to improve their laws and protections, especially in the wake of the case. Raladic (talk) 04:36, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You have still not provided any information that this death was because the victim was transgender. In fact, you have now said that it may have been related to the victim’s ethnicity. Whilst the two motives are not necessarily mutually exclusive, you need to provide definite evidence that at least one of the motives for the killing was because the victim was transgender – otherwise your edit is in breach of the edit notice. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:56, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Sweet6970 here -- even if it is plausible it was related to her transness, it's also plausible it was done to conceal his illegal relations with a minor, or quite a few other possibilities. PA does not have include trans people under its hate crimes categorization, so the prosecution is not treating it as such; additionally, they have said there lacks evidence for a federal hate crime charge. While transphobic motive is plausible, it's not clear. AmityCity (talk) 23:14, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Serena Angelique Velázquez and Layla Pelaez

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Please re-add the deaths of Serena Angelique Velázquez and Layla Pelaez with the added source of Puerto Rico's newspaper of record, El Nuevo Día, "The evidence in the case, initially investigated by the Puerto Rican Police, includes an admission that the motive for the crime included the fact that the victims were trans women, making it the first federal case to present allegations of a hate crime in Puerto Rico." Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 17:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for providing this source. I have re-added the material, with the new reference. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:42, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Historical examples

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This page could benefit from examples pre-dating 1990. While obviously the specific terminology used differs and evidence is harder to come by the further one goes back, surely transgender people were not killed for the first time for their gender expression in 1991.

On a similar and related note; Joan of Arc is one such potential figure. Obviously the details of their gender identity are uncertain, however, they were burned at the stake for heresy, with one of the primary charges being their refusal to desist in wearing gender-inappropriate garb (men's clothing). Assuming this page is not limited to hate crimes, but would also include government execution, this page's own criteria of "being transgender was (one of) the reasons why they were killed" seems apt.

Would love to hear other users' thoughts on this; I'll hold off on adding her or a historical section to the list as of yet. However, given its relevance and that it would likely be of interest to users reading the page, I'll add a link to Cross-dressing, gender identity, and sexuality of Joan of Arc, where this issue is discussed, to the "See Also" section. SophieAmity (talk) 21:49, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly there are a lot of cases in Transgender people in Nazi Germany that could stand to be included, if not individually than referenced at large. I'll do some digging. AmityCity (talk) 23:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t understand the suggestion that Joan of Arc was killed for being transgender. There is nothing in the article to suggest that she was transgender, and the article on her says that she was executed for heresy: She was put on trial by Bishop Pierre Cauchon on accusations of heresy, which included blaspheming by wearing men's clothes, acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church. Sweet6970 (talk) 15:31, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Joan was executed, in no small part, for refusing to desist in wearing cross-sex clothing. She decided she would rather be put to the stake and burned than to be forced to wear women's clothing. Does that not sound familiar? In what way is that different from many of the names on this list?
A line from the opening statement from their trial reads: "The report has now become well known in many places that this woman, utterly disregarding what is honourable in the female sex, breaking the bounds of modesty, and forgetting all female decency, has disgracefully put on the clothing of the male sex, a striking and vile monstrosity". That the transphobic motivation was religious is common today.
Cross-dressing, gender identity, and sexuality of Joan of Arc might be worth a read in helping understand the suggestion of her killing for being transgender. Obviously Joan did not use the word "transgender", and while modern transgender identities did not appear randomly without any historical context, it is a matter of historical contention.
I don't intend that we should put a line saying "Joan of Arc is transgender," obviously, given the applicability of that specific label is uncertain and a question of the historical record; but she was very clearly put on trial and executed in large part because of her transvestism. This seems like potentially-worthwhile historical context: possibly the most high-profile case of all time of someone being killed for cross-sex affectation. AmityCity (talk) 17:19, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Cross-dressing is not the same as identifying as a man. Even the article ‘Cross-dressing, gender identity, and sexuality of Joan of Arc’ does not provide any evidence that she identified as a man. The heresy she was accused of includes ‘acting upon visions that were demonic, and refusing to submit her words and deeds to the judgment of the church’ . Sweet6970 (talk) 21:15, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for adding the information about killings in Nazi-era Germany. I wouldn't support adding Joan of Arc unless there are a lot of high-quality sources saying she was killed for being trans. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:31, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, I'll hold off. I would say the position/interpretation of Joan as specifically transgender is relatively fringe; and given the list is dedicated to cases with confirmed motive, probably unnecessary to add one that's more speculative.
Does raise the question of whether this list should include people who did not identify as trans themselves, but were attacked for being perceived as transgender -- e.g. if a intersex person who did not identify as trans, a drag queen/king, or a masculine cis woman, were to be attacked by someone by mistake / with decidedly transphobic motives. I think my inclination is that it would be a probably unnecessary increase in scope and any such cases could be left off, but I don't feel strongly one way or the other. (And this is probably also a question that could be left to the event that any such cases ever come up.) AmityCity (talk) 23:13, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BLP Noticeboard

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I have mentioned this article at WP:BLPN. The thread is ‘BLP issue at History of violence against LGBT people in the United States’ Sweet6970 (talk) 14:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You make a good point about cases being added without clear indication that the motive was transphobia. However, could you please elaborate on your reasoning as to why the page itself does not "serve an encyclopaedic purpose"? This page has an average of 311 daily views in the last week; clearly it is a source of information that people are interested in, and it is otherwise difficult to find and navigate to individual historical cases. AmityCity (talk) 23:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Per Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Notability, the criteria for the existence of a list like this is "if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources". I would think anyone would agree that "trans people being killed for being transgender" is relatively commonly discussed by reliable sources. Here's Time and HRC on it if needed. AmityCity (talk) 23:24, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that this article serves no encyclopaedic purpose because it does not provide any encyclopaedic information. It doesn’t tell me about the incidence of murder with a transphobic motive – as far as I am aware, there are no reliable statistics on this. And in a way, there never could be, because motives for murder are subjective and often mixed. The individual killings are mostly not notable in themselves. The list cannot be exhaustive, and it is misleading to highlight certain murders and not others. I have not come across trans people being killed for being transgender"… discussed by reliable sources. This is probably because it is extremely rare in Britain, where I live. Sweet6970 (talk) 15:29, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not surprised it is discussed less in Britain, you're correct that rates over there are much lower, it's more prevalent in the United States, South America, and Southeast Asia. However, it is certainly being discussed by reliable sources elsewhere around the globe.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation collects data on the incidence of murder perpetuated specifically with transphobic motive; even if it is likely somewhat underreported, the pre-eminent US intelligence agency is generally considered a source of reliable statistics.
If you'd like additional reliable sources discussing this, here's the White House referring to an "epidemic of violence and murder against transgender women." Discussions of the same can also be found with the ACLU, in an article covering the topic in the journal Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance, and many other sources. See also "Anti-Transgender Ideology, Laws, and Homicide: An Analysis of the Trifecta of Violence" published in the academic journal Homicide Studies, as well as another tertiary source, a journal article discussing transphobic homicide coverage in Critical Criminology. Find also a UCLA Law Report and Georgetown's American Criminal Law Review discussing the "trans panic defense", a dedicated legal defense used for cases in which a trans person was attacked expressly because of their transgender status; this defense was used in multiple murders on this list, and the Georgetown report goes on to call it a "common defense strategy" to reduce a murder to a lesser charge. Multiple states have outlawed the defense; here's NBC reporting. (I can go on if need be, there is no shortage of this discussion in academic, media, and government sources.) AmityCity (talk) 17:04, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Linking back to this page from case pages?

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I wonder if it would be useful to add a link to this list on applicable pages. If so, what do folks think would be the best way to do it?

I'm inclined towards adding this link under a "See also:" (and adding said section where needed), but could also see the merit in a broader approach by adding the Transgender sidebar and/or Discrimination sidebar to those pages; this page is linked in both of those. AmityCity (talk) 00:56, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reformatting as table/sortable list

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Looking at the similar page List of lynching victims in the United States, the page is somewhat easier to read and the details are more immediately visible. Additionally, given that much of the basis of the relevance of a page like this is the quantity, location, et cetera of the incidents -- and included details of any individual incident are generally relatively limited -- it seems like it could make the page more useful. The information on this page is currently presented strictly chronologically, with location details somewhat obscured which may not be the most relevant for some users; I imagine a table would by default be sorted chronologically but could allow folks to see lists by country/subregion, gender, ethnicity (the vast majority of victims in the US are black trans women), age, et cetera. I worry that some of the additional details sections might be a little long but it seems like some of that could be reduced by shifting from full sentences to quick summaries as in the other example given.

Would love to hear thoughts, including about whether folks think such a reformatting should preserve the 90s/00s/10s/20s split the article's main body currently has or not. AmityCity (talk) 06:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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