Transgender killings an investigative quagmire

[kweerwolf]

The conviction of two men this week in the killing of 17-year-old Gwen Araujo was unusual -- but not because transgender slayings are rare.

Since Araujo was beaten and strangled in 2002 during an attack at a party in Newark by men she knew, four other transgender individuals have been killed in the Bay Area.

No one has been charged in any of those four cases. The difficulty, say police and transgender advocates, is that these incidents are not easy to investigate because society tends to marginalize the victims.

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Those tracking transgender homicides say they don't know for sure how many transgender individuals have been killed, though the leader of another San Francisco organization says she hears of one to three homicides per month around the world. The killings often pass unnoticed because police and then the media report the victim's birth name and biological gender, said Mottet.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/15/MNGF3ENTEB1.DTL