Just recently, Ally Lee Steinfeld, a transgender teenage from a rural part of Missouri, was brutally murdered. Steinfeld had her genitals slashed and eyes taken out, and her other remains were discovered in a pile of burnt objects. Since then, two men and two women have been connected to Steinfeld’s murder: James Grigsby, Andrew Vrba, Isis Schauer, and Briana Calderas (Owen, 2017). There’s reason to believe that this person was targeted due to coming out as transgender, as she came out a couple months ago. She is the 21st transgender to be killed within the U.S. since 2017 started (“Violence Against the,” 2017). While these suspects have been charged with first degree murder, the department has decided not to call it a hate crime. The prosecutor says that murder of the first degree is “all that matters,” as that should be a hate crime automatically (Beschizza, 2017). However, that would mean that all murders are hate crime, which wouldn’t be exactly true. It’s obviously true the case that Steinfeld was attacked for her sexual orientation, and this has been happening much too much in the United States.
Right now, states are kind of polarized when it comes to hate crime laws. West coast states tend to have hate crime laws and come down harder on hate crimes while the south is slower to adapt. That being said, all states need to do a better job of protecting minorities and those most vulnerable from hate. As you can see in the image, hate crime is some thing we need to start taking more seriously, and the states should try doing this before the government intervenes because no one likes when the government forces people to do stuff. That being said, hate crimes should not allow law enforcement nor government from encroaching on people’s First Amendment rights. If a baker refuses to bake a cake for a gay because his religion doesn’t allow him to and tells him that he will go to Hell if he does so, the government should not bankrupt the baker because he is obeying his own religion.
Data collection needs to happen when combatting hate crime. We need to collect data on states in a way that doesn’t threaten the private lives of citizens. The best way to do this would be polling and a count of cases involving hate crime. Then, we can analyze which state’s policies are working and which are failing, and suggest new policies that will help combat hate. Transgenders are often afraid of coming out, and this may skew the polling, so there is honestly no great way to take data unless we do it out of anonymity so that the people can feel safe if they answer truthfully.
In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson signed a federal hate crime statute into law, allowing the DOJ to enforce these laws ever since. Unfortunately, this statute didn’t include sexual orientation as a protectionary right, so Obama passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009. The Justice Department charged 72 defendants and have convicted 45 people under this Act. This Act made it illegal to cause bodily harm due to the victim’s race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity. While this law has been in effect, there are still a lot of hate crimes that need to be combatted in today’s society as we become a more globalized community and welcome in people from all walks of life. Transgenders shouldn’t feel scared to come out as transgender, and religious traditionalists shouldn’t be scared of losing their religious freedom because transgenders come out (“Since 1968 when,” n.d.).
- Beschizza, R. (2017, September 30). Transgender murder victim stabbed in genitals and set on fire ‘not a hate crime’. Retrieved September 30, 2017, from https://boingboing.net/2017/09/30/transgender-murder-victim-stab.html
- Hate Crime Laws. (n.d.). Retrieved September 30, 2017, from https://www.justice.gov/crt/hate- crime-laws
- Owens, T. (2017, September 28). Brutal murder of Missouri trans teen won’t be treated as hate crime. Retrieved September 30, 2017, from https://news.vice.com/story/brutal-murder-of- missouri-trans-teen-wont-be-treated-as-hate-crime
- Violence Against the Transgender Community in 2017. (2017). Retrieved September 30, 2017, from https://www.hrc.org/resources/violence-against-the-transgender-community-in- 2017
