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Anti-transgender hate crimes spike, leading to calls for a public health emergency

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For decades, transgender Americans have lived under a constant threat of violence. Whether at their homes, places of work or in public, there seemingly is nowhere out of reach from hate.

In the last 20 years, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people of all types have risen at historic rates across the country. And since 2016, Los Angeles — the nation’s second-biggest city has seen a startling rise in violence motivated by hate against its transgender residents, though it is ranked as one of most friendly to queer and trans people in the U.S. 

The Advocate compiled data from the years 2003-2022. A primary source was the LA County Commission on Human Relations (LACCHR), which has tracked hate crime data in the area for 25 years.

In 2022, there were 44 recorded anti-transgender hate crimes in the county, the highest number ever on record and a 20-year high. Seventy-two percent of those crimes were violent, also reaching a two-decade high since 2003. 

The Advocate compiled data from various sources to analyze hate crimes in Los Angeles County over two decades from 2003-2022, the most recent year on record. A notable spike in hate crimes with an anti-transgender bias occurred in 2016, and the count has remained elevated in the eight years since, marking a new deadly record with each consecutive year. The increase in reported hate crimes is due in part to more incidents, but also because of victims’ growing awareness of how to take action, which leads to a rising number of reports.

The rise in violence against LGBTQ Angelenos should be a public health emergency, experts and victims say. But various challenges to reporting and prosecuting the crimes means few sufferers achieve justice and even fewer assailants are caught, allowing them to attack again. 

Anti transgender hate crimes public health emergency nex benedict memorial rallyEquality CT

Advocates, community members and experts all agree that the nation’s shifting political climate is to blame. Designating the epidemic of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people in LA and nationwide as a public health emergency could motivate governments to dedicate valuable resources to bolster a system that is overburdened at best, and outright ineffective at worst when it comes to receiving, reporting, and prosecuting hate crimes. 

“Our bodies have become a battleground of politics, [which is] why we need a national state of emergency for trans people,” said Carla Ibarra, a community affairs advocate and LGBTQIA+ Liason for the city of Los Angeles’ civil rights department. “Congress, who was supposed to be legislating policies that should be there to protect us minority communities, instead is the very Congress that’s out every day trying to argue why 200-plus anti-queer, anti-trans legislations are valid.” 

What is a hate crime?

While definitions vary slightly by jurisdiction, the general consensus is: A hate crime is a criminal offense that someone commits because of a motivational bias against someone’s disability, ethnicity, gender or gender identity, race, religion or sexual orientation.

Anti transgender hate crimes public health emergency MagPi store flower LGBTQ flag memorial Laura Ann Carleton San Bernardino CountyROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement groups note this includes cases of mistaken identity when the victim is wrongfully identified as part of a specific group even though they are not. One recent example of this was the August 2023 murder of Laura Ann Carleton, a store owner who was fatally shot in San Bernardino County after a confrontation with a man who ripped one of her pride flags down and yelled homophobic slurs at her. Carleton was not a member of the LGBTQ community. But her death speaks to the pervasiveness of hate violence – those who are so severely motivated by animosity for another group that they’ll stop at nothing to act on that violence, even if it means targeting the wrong victim. 

Who can receive a hate crime report? 

Any law enforcement agency can take a hate crime report, but there’s many other places that do as well. 

The LACCHR’s data consists of reports derived from over 100 different reporting agencies, Executive Director Robin Toma told The Advocate. 

These include the LAPD and LA County Sheriff’s office, the Los Angeles Unified School District, local colleges and universities as well as nonprofits like the LA LGBT Center, Toma said. The goal of the LA County CHR is to establish a “community-based system to receive and assist people who report any act of hate,” Toma said. 

Anti transgender hate crimes public health emergency miami report lgbtq hate crime library signJeff Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Once a victim contacts their local police or sheriff to report the crime, the agency is obligated to report that to the FBI. The FBI has been obtaining crime statistics from state and local law enforcement since 1930 but only began requiring hate crime data in 1990 following Congress’ passing of the Hate Crime Statistics Act, meaning there’s limited historical context to this data. 

But the numbers are only part of the story, Ibarra said. 

“Do we need these numbers? In a perfect world, we shouldn’t even be talking about, ‘you should protect us because this is X number of trans people are being harmed or killed violently,’” Ibarra said. “But you can’t just get any funding for any services if you don’t have that number.”

The role of violence

Hate crimes are often violent, but not always. 

Law enforcement distinguishes between the two, but nonviolent hate crimes are still hate crimes if there’s sufficient bias against the victim’s identity. Murder, attempted murder, rape or sexual assault, robbery and simple and aggravated assaults are violent crimes. 

Disorderly conduct, intimidation, threatening phone calls or vandalism are often considered non-violent. 

Of all 2,833 hate crimes recorded by the LACCHR from 2003 to 2022, nearly half were simple assaults. In 2022 alone, 72% of hate crimes were violent, indicating what experts mark as an alarming trend of growing violence. 

Anti transgender hate crimes public health emergency Transgender Day of Remembrance candlelit vigilScott Varley/Digital First Media/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images

Toma has worked at the LACCHR since 1995 and said the rising rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ Angelenos should “absolutely” be a public health emergency. He added that anti-Black, anti-Latino, anti-LGBT and anti-Jewish hate crimes are the four largest categories and typically make up about 80% of all reported.

“The LGBT community has long been one of the largest targets of hate in LA County and we’ve documented that,” Toma said. “When we started to really focus on anti-trans hate crime, we saw that even though the numbers might not be as large, the level of violence was always one of the highest of any targeted groups.” 

If you or someone you know was a victim of a hate crime, you can report it to your state or local police, or anonymously to the FBI. Or reach the U.S. Justice Department resource center for hate crime victims at 1-855-484-2846.

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Police Questioned a Prime Suspect in a Utah Gay Man’s Murder. Why Is the Case Still Cold?

Some cold cases linger for decades without any leads. But in one unique case out of Utah, a prime suspect was identified in the murder of 24 year-old Douglas Ray Coleman and all but admitted to the killing – but was never charged. 

Coleman was an openly gay man who was shot dead less than a month after Anthony Adams, a black gay activist and member of the Salt Lake City Socialist Workers Party was found stabbed to death in his apartment. Friends and colleagues of Adams called his death an “assassination” and claimed he was killed for his political beliefs and sexuality. 

While Coleman and Adams reportedly didn’t know each other, their murders marked a spate of killings that targeted the gay community in Salt Lake City. While the Salt Lake City city council now consists mainly of LGBTQ+ representatives, it’s long been a religiously conservative town, and in the late 1970s that made it especially deadly for its openly queer residents. It also made it extremely difficult for gay people to find justice from law enforcement due to dangerous stereotypes they weren’t credible witnesses due to their “lifestyles.” 

Doug Coleman Murdered Salt Lake City LGBTQ COLD CASEImage: Kris Robinette via Salt Lake Tribune

Who was Doug Coleman?

Accounts of Coleman’s life portray him as a relatively quiet artist who, per his obituary, “had received awards on Peach Days [an annual harvest celebration and fair in Utah] for his oil paintings.” 

Coleman reportedly was recognized at gay bars but didn’t have a penchant for being ostentatious or flamboyant – the Salt Lake Tribune noted in a 2023 reportthat Coleman was “a regular” in the local gay scene but “also kept to himself.” 

Before his death at age 26, Coleman had battled mental health challenges, including paranoid schizophrenia. He was reportedly “cycling in and out of mental health facilities,” per the Salt Lake Tribune, not long before he was killed. His brother, Dennis Coleman, told the Tribune Doug “was just a normal kid from a normal family that had the unfortunate experience of having a disease.” Doug was survived by his parents, four brothers and one sister. Some members of the Coleman family were active members of the Mormon church. 

Family Photos of Doug Coleman Murdered Salt Lake City LGBTQ COLD CASEImage: Kris Robinette via Salt Lake Tribune

The Advocate’s attempts to reach Dennis Coleman were unsuccessful. 

During the workday, Doug Coleman worked as a produce manager at a Brigham City Safeway store. He also reportedly worked at Rastskeller Pizza in downtown Salt Lake City and lived with a coworker and his girlfriend – next door to the man who’d end up being a prime suspect in the murder, a 62-year-old retiree named Bruce Hughes. 

Coleman was last seen at Salt Lake City’s Sun Tavern bar on Nov. 30, 1978. That same night, his body was found in a boxcar along a stretch of railroad tracks not far from the city’s Pacific Union rail depot. Shell casings from a .22 pistol were found near his body. Coleman had been fatally shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest. 

The main suspect

The evidence against Hughes seems damning and all but conclusive. Cases are considered cold if there isn’t sufficient evidence to charge a suspect, but in Coleman’s case, it’s striking how much information police had and still failed to make an arrest. 

A ballistics expert determined Hughes’ gun was likely the one used to kill Coleman. The casings found at the scene matched a weapon Hughes had sold to a pawn shop. 

Hughes was a longtime firearm owner and pawned all of his weapons shortly after the murder. Per the Tribune, when asked why he sold the guns, Hughes said he “didn’t want them to be misused.” And when asked how he’d account for his gun matching the crime scene, Hughes glibly said “oh gee, I had no explanation for it.” He reportedly also told police that unless someone had broken into his home, stolen the gun from its hiding place under his mattress, killed Coleman and returned it, there wasn’t any other explanation for his weapon being used for the shooting. 

This wasn’t all. Hughes was Coleman’s neighbor, and he had a fascination with Coleman’s female roommate. One time, the woman complained to Hughes about Coleman and Hughes openly threatened to kill him. Hughes even admitted this to police, confessing that he threatened Coleman “because he was ignorant.” Further, the Tribune reported Hughes claimed he would shoot Coleman and make it look like a burglary gone wrong. 

Crime Scene Doug Coleman Murdered Salt Lake City LGBTQ COLD CASEImages: Salt Lake City PD

Hughes had also worked in the same railyard where Coleman’s body was found. He admitted to police that he’d seen Coleman the day of the murder, but said he was there “looking for scrap metal.” 

The Tribune viewed Coleman’s police report, which noted Hughes told police the name of a friend who might know where his guns were kept – but officers never followed up. 

Finally, although witnesses found it difficult to conclusively identify Hughes, a worker at the railyard described the suspect as having similar hair as Hughes and neighbors noted he owned a jacket similar to that of the reported suspect’s. 

Dangerous stereotypes

So why wasn’t Hughes charged? Former U.S. Attorney for Utah John Huber toldthe Utah Investigative Journalism Project that prosecutors likely weren’t confident in spite of all the evidence they had because the main witnesses were “colorful characters” – members of the gay community or sex workers. 

And there was another suspect – Perry Stanger, a religious man who left Salt Lake City the day Coleman was killed. Stanger’s own mother said he had a penchant for acting violent in the name of God and noted she thought he could have killed Coleman. Stanger was arrested and institutionalized for mental health issues, but he was never charged because he reportedly never had access to a firearm. 

Still, it’s difficult to reconcile the evidence and borderline confession from Hughes with police’s hesitancy to arrest him. Salt Lake police didn’t immediately return The Advocate’s request for comment. 

It’s not clear exactly why there was a spike in murders against the gay community in Salt Lake City at this time. But what is certain is that the gay community was sent reeling from both murders, and it took years for many of Salt Lake City’s queer residents to feel safe again. 

Hughes was elderly when questioned about the killing and consequently not around to answer any more. Unfortunately for Coleman’s loved ones, the trail stopped with Hughes and the case remains cold. 

Have a tip about this case to share with law enforcement? Contact the Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000.