“Black trans bodies are under attack”: gender non-conforming homicide victims in the U.S. 1995-2014

109 Pages·2015·1.01 MB·English

by  Teal

“BLACK TRANS BODIES ARE UNDER ATTACK”:
GENDER NON-CONFORMING HOMICIDE VICTIMS IN THE US 1995-2014

By

Janae L. Teal

A Thesis Presented to
The Faculty of Humboldt State University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts in Sociology

Dr. Meredith Williams, Program Graduate Coordinator
Committee Membership
Dr. Jennifer Eichstedt, Committee Chair
Dr. Renée Byrd, Committee Member

May 2015
ABSTRACT
“BLACK TRANS BODIES ARE UNDER ATTACK”:
GENDER NON-CONFORMING HOMICIDE VICTIMS IN THE US 1995-2014

Janae L. Teal

As argued by transgender actress and activist Laverne Cox (2014), black
transgender bodies are under attack. This multi-level attack is happening through high
rates of interpersonal and institutional violence, discrimination and dehumanization. It is
also happening at the level of state violence, and the devaluation of black trans bodies. In
this thesis, I explore each of these levels of attack, and see how this is reflected in one
particular arena of the transgender experience in the United States: the homicide of
transgender women. As I will show in this thesis, based on content analysis of 629 news
article discussing the deaths of 259 transgender and gender non-conforming individuals
between 1995 and 2014, African American transgender individuals are more likely to be
killed, and with extreme violence, compared to their counterparts, and the rate may be
increasing over time. This study demonstrates evidence of interpersonal, institutional and
state devaluation of black trans bodies.

Keywords: transgender, gender, homicide, crime, hate crime, violence, lgbt, overkill,
state violence, bodies, institutional violence, race, interpersonal violence, media
ii
DEDICATION
To my Jani, who won’t ever get the chance to read this thesis…thank you for being the
first person who ever made me feel capable of changing the world. I love you and miss
you every day. Yep yep yep.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to start by thanking my thesis committee: Jennifer Eichstedt and
Renée Byrd. Your support and encouragement throughout the thesis writing process was
greatly appreciated. Thank you for always pushing me to the next level, and for never
letting me take the easy way out. Chris Martinek, thank you being my safe place, and for
always making me feel capable. Oh, and Chris, thank you for helping me to discover my
love for statistics; this thesis was made possible by your infectious enthusiasm of stats!
Alicia Persson, I honestly don’t know how I would have survived graduate school
without you! You are the department superhero; thank you for keeping us all in line! To
my undergraduate research team, Liza Olmedo, Julian Rivera and Ashley Rose Florian,
thank you for untiring dedication to this project; I couldn’t have made it through
twenty years of data without you! To my unbeatable cohort, my second family, and some
of the best friends I have ever had; thank you! Thank you for the endless laughs, middle
of the night texts and unwavering support; I couldn’t have done any of this without each
and every one of you. Patric Esh and Nicole Chappelle—thank you for being my
lifelines. To Niki Stafford, the closest thing I have ever had to a sister, thank you for
reminding me of who I am and where I come from. You and the girls make me proud of
the path I have chosen. To my parents and my little brother—thank you for always
reminding me how proud you are; your reassurance has me kept me going. And, to my
wife, the person who inspires me every day to be a better academic, and believed in me
every step of the way, thank you. Your support and understanding have been invaluable.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii
DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii
LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
THEORETICAL FOUNDATION ...................................................................................... 4
REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................................................................. 8
Institutional Contexts .................................................................................................... 10
Media. ....................................................................................................................... 11
Economy and Housing .............................................................................................. 14
Mental Health Care ................................................................................................... 19
Interpersonal Violence .................................................................................................. 23
Domestic Violence .................................................................................................... 23
Bias-Motivated Crimes. ............................................................................................ 28
Overkill ..................................................................................................................... 30
State Violence ............................................................................................................... 34
Police Violence ......................................................................................................... 35
Criminal Justice System. ........................................................................................... 37
METHODS ....................................................................................................................... 39
Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 39

v
Content Analysis ........................................................................................................... 42
Data Analysis ................................................................................................................ 42
Measures ....................................................................................................................... 43
Victim Demographics ............................................................................................... 43
Incident Demographics ............................................................................................. 44
Institutional Contexts ................................................................................................ 45
Interpersonal Violence .............................................................................................. 47
State Violence ........................................................................................................... 48
RESULTS ......................................................................................................................... 50
Victim and Incident Demographics .............................................................................. 51
Victim Demographics ............................................................................................... 51
Incident Demographics ............................................................................................. 53
Institutional Contexts .................................................................................................... 58
Media ........................................................................................................................ 58
Economy and Housing .............................................................................................. 60
Mental Health Care ................................................................................................... 63
Interpersonal Violence .................................................................................................. 63
Domestic Violence .................................................................................................... 64
Bias-Motivated Violence .......................................................................................... 65
Overkill ..................................................................................................................... 67
State Violence ............................................................................................................... 69
Police Violence ......................................................................................................... 69
Criminal Justice System ............................................................................................ 72

vi
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 75
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 78
APPENDIX A: CODE SHEET ........................................................................................ 87
APPENDIX B: CODEBOOK ........................................................................................... 93

vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Victim Demographic Information [Race and Age] ............................................ 52
Table 2: 2013 Homicide Rates in the United States per 100,000 ..................................... 53
Table 3: Incident Information [Type of Attack by Body Part Attacked] .......................... 57
Table 4: Institutional Context [Vulnerabilities by Victim Race] ...................................... 62
Table 5: Interpersonal Violence [Offender Relationship by Victim Race] ...................... 64
Table 6: Interpersonal Violence [Motive by Victim Race] .............................................. 66
Table 7: State Violence [Sex Work Allegation by Victim Race] ..................................... 70

viii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Gender Non-Conforming Homicides in the United States ................................ 54
Figure 2: Gender Non-Conforming Homicides in Hawaii and Puerto Rico ..................... 54
Figure 3: Race Composition of Homicide Events 1995-2014 .......................................... 56
Figure 4: Media Representation Variables by Race ......................................................... 59
Figure 5: Victim Demographic Information [Occupation Word Cloud] .......................... 61
Figure 6: Interpersonal Violence [Overkill by Victim Race] ........................................... 67

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1

INTRODUCTION
In a 2014 interview with Democracy Now!, actress and activist Laverne Cox
proclaimed ‘black trans bodies are under attack’. She was referring to a disturbing pattern
of violence against black transwomen, including the recent case of CeCe McDonald, who
went to prison for the self-defense killing of one of the men who attacked her and her
friends. With this study, I examine this pattern of violence and victimization being faced
by transgender and gender non-conforming women of color. I do this by exploring the
259 documented cases of transgender and gender-nonconforming victims of homicide in
the United States between 1995 and 2014. Rather than understanding these cases as a
matter of transphobia, I argue that this violence can be understood as the result of a
unique combination of racism, sexism and homophobia, directed specifically at the
bodies of transgender women of color. Transgender and gender non-conforming bodies,
and the bodies of people of color, are devalued in the United States, where a rigid social
and legal gender binary serves to other transgender individuals, and racism and
heteronormativity are pervasive. In this study I will briefly explore prior research on
gendered and raced violence, and provide a theoretical foundation for the study by
explaining Intersectionality Theory. I will then outline the research methods for the study,
and for the preliminary results of this exploratory study I will provide a brief overview of
the demographics of the 259 documented homicide cases.
This research builds on prior work on anti-transgender violence, and contributes
to prior research by profiling the specifics of these homicide cases. Because I look at the