New tallies from advocacy organizations and federal law enforcement show a sharp decline in violent deaths of transgender people in the United States, according to reporting in the Boston Globe.
Advocates for Trans Equality found that the number of violent deaths in the transgender community “has fallen nearly 50 percent from 53 in 2023 to 27 in 2025,” the Globe reported. The Human Rights Campaign separately tracked “a peak in 2021 of 47 deaths falling to 27 last year.”
FBI hate crimes data cited in the reporting also shows a decline in the abuse of transgender people between 2024 and 2025.
Additionally, an analysis from the Manhattan Institute, a right-leaning think tank, found that transgender people “actually have a lower murder rate than does the population as a whole.” That analysis has not been publicly refuted by advocacy groups, according to the reporting.
An Ally’s Take
The Boston Globe piece was written by David Mastio, who describes himself as an ally of transgender people, including a family member. Mastio argued that the persistent messaging from LGBTQ rights groups about danger to transgender people is harmful given the trend in the data. He wrote:
I care about trans people, and I love one in particular in my close family. What LGBTQ rights groups are doing to these folks with this unrelenting message that death is waiting for them around every corner is not healthy. They have their constituents living in fear when the best numbers we have show that the supposed “epidemic,” “onslaught,” or “genocide” against trans people is not as potent as they suggest and is, in fact, lessening. That’s good news. We should let some of the most vulnerable people in our society know.
Advocacy Groups Push Back
Transgender advocacy groups have not celebrated the reported decline. Instead, they argue the underlying data is incomplete and should not be used to draw broad conclusions about the prevalence of anti-transgender violence. They say families and authorities sometimes misname or misgender victims, which they contend makes it difficult to accurately count how many transgender people have died from violence.
