Texas had another chance this year to protect transgender people and again chose not to

Texas Rep. Garnet F. Coleman has tried to change the state’s hate crime law every legislative session since 2007 to add protections for transgender people.

He had little hope that 2019 would be any different in the Republican-controlled legislature. But with more headlines drawing attention to violence against transgender people, it felt as urgent as ever, he said.

“If something’s right, you have to keep trying to do it until it gets done,” he said.

One week before the bill’s supporters made their case to the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on April 29, a mob yelling hateful slurs assaulted transgender woman Muhlaysia Booker in Dallas.

Two weeks later, Booker was dead and Coleman’s bill had failed to make it out of committee.

Now that another transgender woman has been found dead in Dallas — the latest in a string of unsolved cases involving transgender victims — advocates say they see a cause-and-effect relationship between the violence and inertia from elected officials and law enforcement.

Members of the committee did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

But action — or inaction — prompts reactions, Coleman said. And that’s what LGBTQ advocates say they are seeing now in Texas.

Two community meetings will be held Thursday in Dallas

In the wake of Booker’s death, diffuse strands of Dallas are coming together to seek ways to protect the black transgender community, one that’s especially vulnerable to violence.

Two community meetings are scheduled Thursday night in Dallas.

Police will lead one in South Dallas, where most of the city’s African-Americans reside. There is no set agenda, but the recent spate of deadly incidents in addition to Booker’s death are expected to make safety prevention key topics.

Another ad hoc meeting will take place Thursday night among representatives of advocacy groups from different factions of the LGBTQ community, said Carter Brown, founder of Black Trans Men and a member of the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition.

Brown says the discovery of Chynal Linsdey’s body in a lake on June 1, just two weeks after Booker’s death, was the latest sign that transgender people can’t rely solely on law enforcement or elected officials for protection.

“The urgency of safety and heightened fear has transgender people feeling like they have to pack a gun to defend their lives,” he said.

“We’re spending our time and energy building the LGBTQ community at large in order to support transgender lives because the legal system and the criminal justice system are failing us.”

The ‘protocol’ of public mourning

Booker’s assault followed by her slaying prompted a cycle of rallies, vigils and forceful condemnations of the violence that befell her.

In a Monday press conference announcing Lindsey’s death, Dallas Police Chief U. Reneé Hall emphasized the department’s commitment to solving the cases in spite of limited resources, and asked the public for tips.

“We are concerned,” she said. “We are actively and aggressively investigating this case, and we have reached out to our federal partners to assist in these efforts.”

Brown said such pledges and other ceremonial gestures fall short of providing transgender people with tangible measures that will protect them, such as updating the state’s hate crime law to include gender identity in the list of protected classes.

“It’s starting to feel like protocol to pacify community with a town hall, a few meetings, a few rallies,” he said. “But then at the end of the day, we are back where we started.”

What changing the hate crime law would do

A change to the state hate crime law would send a powerful message, said Leslie McMurray, transgender education and advocacy coordinator for the LGBTQ-focused Resource Center in Dallas — that harming someone because of their gender identity makes a crime even worse and carries enhanced penalties.

But Leslie McMurray was among those who testified in favor of Coleman’s bill. And she attended Booker’s funeral, where she was horrified to hear one proclamation after another from elected officials condemning Booker’s death.

“How many people have to die before they do something?” Leslie McMurray said. “There are political messages that are being sent that transgender lives don’t matter.”

Those messages aren’t just coming from Texas, she said. She pointed to policies from the Trump administration, including the ban on military service for new transgender recruits and the repeal of anti-discrimination protections for the transgender community in health care and public housing.

These protections would help remove barriers that make transgender people vulerable to violence, said Ginger McMurray, director of the Dallas chapter of the international support group, Trans-Cendence.

Why transgender people are especially vulnerable to violence

Studies show that transgender people experience elevated levels of discrimination when they seek jobs or housing. The combination of housing insecurity and joblessness can lead to a cycle of poverty which drives some transgender people into illicit work, such as prostitution and the drug trade, which makes them more susceptible to violence, Ginger McMurray said.

While it’s not clear that these factors were involved in the cases of Booker, Lindsey or other unsolved homicides, Ginger McMurray said their deaths should be a wake-up call to the wider world of the policy solutions that could make life easier for transgender people — including anti-discrimination laws that would help them gain access to jobs, health care and housing.

“We see and hear a lot when a crime happens, but outside of that, it’s crickets,” she said. “It’s not just a matter of finding who did it and keeping them from doing it again, it’s about providing resources and opportunities for us to live in peace.”

What’s next?

Texas lawmakers will reconvene for the legislative session in two years. And when they do, Coleman said he intends to refile the bill to amend the state hate crimes law. He sees momentum building around the normalization of transgender lives in America, and he’s hopeful for the future.

“By filing these bills over the years, it gives people who are pro-LGBTQ rights something to organize around,” he said.

“I feel like if you do nothing, you’re acquiescing to the people who don’t understand. And as generations go by, the level of understanding increases.”