Murder, politics and evidence
or why I am disgusted by trans-rights activists turning the murder of one child by two others into an emblem for their cause
Brianna Ghey, 16 years old, was stabbed to death earlier this year in a Warrington park. At the time, the police were careful to point out that the murder was not a hate crime. Yet, the fact that Brianna was transgender provided fertile ground for trans rights activists and others to turn the murder into something it was not— proof of the rise of violent transphobia in England, stoked by a callous Conservative government’s culture wars and aided by feminist fighting for sex-based rights.
During the eventual trial, it was established that the two children accused of committing the crime were intent on murdering someone, anyone, and Ghey had the misfortune of being the person they picked. The evidence that the murder was not fuelled by transphobia was clear, accepted by the court and mentioned by the judge when passing down the guilty verdicts. These facts this did not stop trans rights activist and others picking up the banner of ‘transphobia kills’ once again.
Although I decided last February not to comment on the reactions of trans rights activists to the murder, I broke my silence and registered my disgust at the cynical political use of the tragedy by a Labour MP. Then I noticed this tweet and I decided to write this blog.
Murder and politics
Modern democracies are based on the idea that everyone is equal before the law and has equal protection by the law. Yet we know that for those whose lives are shaped by social structural inequalities of class, race and ethnicity, sex and age, equality before the law is little more than an ideal. In these circumstances there are particular murders that strike a chord. The recent murders of Sarah Everard, Ashling Murphy, Sabina Neesa, and Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were all politicised in an attempt to draw public attention to the dangers women face from men in public places as well as to highlight the misogyny and racism of the police. The Femicide Census and Jess Phillips’ MP recitation of the names of murdered women each year in the House of Commons on International Women’s Day is the politicisation of every woman murder victim of male violence.
Damilola Taylor’s murder like that of Stephen Lawrence were politicised in an attempt to draw attention to racism within the police force. Ben Kinsella’s murder in 2008 was politicized in an attempt to draw attention to the rise in knife crime (and the failure of government to meaningfully address it). Mark Duggan’s killing by police officers provided the spark that led to an inchoate political protest - the 2011 English riots. I could go on.
The point I'm making is simple. Murder does get politicised, especially when the circumstances are connected to on-going failures in the criminal justice system, by governments or by the police to address well known and very well evidenced social problems that despite policy reform continue to exist.
The reason that the politicisation of Ghey’s death was and remains problematic is because there is no evidence base to support the idea that ‘transphobia kills’, the idea that violent transphobia is on the rise or that campaigns to support sex based rights, or even the bogeyman of Tory culture wars has endangered trans individuals in the UK. There has been no single recorded incident of a hate motivated murder of a trans individual in England and Wales. The evidence of the rise in hate crimes against trans individuals is problematic. What few trans rights activists note when trotting out the stats on hate crime is that there has been a significant increase in all police recorded hate crimes and that the increase in transgender related hate crimes is in line with the increase for all other hate crimes. They also fail to note that recorded crime rarely if ever relates directly to the total number of crimes. For this reason the Home Office states that recent increases in police recorded hate crime are most likely to have been driven by improvements in crime recording by the police as well improved identification of such offences. The conclusion that cannot be drawn from this data is that hate crime against transgender individuals is on the rise. When one compares the lack of evidence about violent transphobia in England and Wales to the robust evidence base about violent sexism and misogyny, violent racism and the abject failure of our criminal justice system to deal with these matters, the politicisation of Ghey’s death is indeed, as Kathleen Stock said in a recent tweet, ghoulish.
Some facts about murder
Murder in England and Wales is relatively rare. In the year ending March 2022, there were 696 murders recorded by the police. Who gets killed and who does the killing reflects deeply ingrained patterns of social inequality within our society. 498 of the 696 murdered in year ending March 2022 were male victims. 198 were females. Breakdown by ethnicity tells a grim tale. The average murder rate between April 2019 to March 2022, expressed per million of the population, is 8.9 for those whose ethnic appearance was white, 39.7 for those whose ethnic appearance was black and 10.5 for those categorised as other [dual heritage, mixed ethnicity]. We also know that there are connections between socio-economic status (ie poverty ) and murder rates. In a study of long term homicide rates between 1979 and 1999, Danny Dorling concluded that the risk of homicide for those living in the richest neighbourhoods fell whereas those living in the poorest neighbourhoods experienced a sixfold increase. Murder is a male problem, and a problem that blights working class and ethnic minority communities most.
Although the homicide rate is much higher for males than for females, we know that when women are murdered they are most likely to be murdered by their male family members, boyfriends, intimate partners or husband. The following stats are all taken from the Homicide Index unless otherwise stated. Domestic homicides accounted for 28% of all homicides where there was a principal suspect in the year ending March 2022. Domestic homicides are those where the victim and principal suspect are either related to one another, including as step or adopted relatives, or are or have been in an intimate relationship. 60% of domestic homicides that year were women killed by men. By comparison women accounted for only 13% of all non-domestic homicides where there was a principal suspect. This is a staggering statistic because it accounts for only around 70% of all homicides in the year ending March 2022 - the remaining 30% are those murders where there is no principal suspect. Because of the time lag caused by investigation etc., older stats provide a clearer picture. So, for the year ending March 2012 there were a total of 525 recorded homicides and of those, the principal subject was known for 454. In that year, 30% of all homicides were recorded as domestic homicides and women being killed by male relatives or intimate partners accounted for 76% of all domestic homicides. By comparison, female victims accounted for only 17% of all non-domestic murders.
These statistics reflects what feminist activists and academics have been saying for more than 50 years: failure to address domestic violence by men leads to the murder of women. The key reason why there has been a failure to address domestic violence as well as other forms of male violence against women has been sexism and misogyny within the police force. Hence cases like Sarah Everard provided a lightning rod for women's anger and thus became politicised.
The overwhelming majority of those convicted for murder are males. In the year ending March 2022, there were a total of 316 convictions for murder. 295 were male and 23 were female. So whilst 28% of victims for murder were female, only 7% of those convicted were female. I say again, murder is a male problem. Where ethnicity is concerned we once again see a disproportionate representation of black and other minoritized individuals. Whereas white individuals make up approximately 82% of the population in 2021 they comprised only 70% of those convicted between the years April 2019 to March 2022. In comparison black and other comprised 18% of the general population for the same years but 28% of convicted principle suspects. Murder is a male problem that is disproportionately borne by minoritized communities in England and Wales. It is easy to see in a context where black and minority ethnic people have significantly higher risks of homicide and disproportionately make up those who are convicted principal suspects, that the murder of young black men or the failure of police to properly investigate becomes a political issue.
Anyone paying attention to the issue of serious youth violence will know that there is a problem with knife crime and the murder of young black men. There is an ongoing debate about what is causing the rise in knife crime amongst young people in England and Wales and how to deal with it but academics do agree that it is connected with poverty, economic deprivation, educational exclusion, disinvestment in youth services, and poor housing and the way that this scars the lives of many young men, particularly young men of colour. In an article that I wrote with two former colleagues from the Open University, we argued:
While populist media reporting is prone to exaggerating the scale of serious interpersonal violence between young people, this does not preclude the argument that too many young people’s lives are being cut short by violent crime in England and Wales, leaving deep and enduring scars on the families and friends closest to those killed. We have argued that by further disadvantaging and marginalising those young people already disadvantaged and marginalised, cuts to public spending and recent reforms to various social policies have exacerbated levels of serious violence. More precisely, cuts to education budgets and perverse inspection framework criteria, cuts to youth services and changes to the associated funding structures, and discriminatory policing practices including stop and search, have disproportionately and adversely affected those who are young, poor, Black and male, further alienating an already alienated section of the population.
Back to Brianna Ghey
By all measures, the Brianna Ghey murder was exceptional. It is an outlier to everything we know about murder. It tells us nothing about the challenges facing many young transgender individuals in our communities – apart from anything else, Brianna’s family and friends were very accepting. But the response to it by trans rights activists tells us much about that community. They could have used their platform to talk about how it was the two children aged 15, intent on violent crime, slipped through our educational and welfare services. Alternatively they could have used their platform to talk about the problem of knife crime – relevant given the fact that Ghey was stabbed to death. Instead, they used it to make claims that fly in the face of evidence. If their reaction tells us anything it tells us that many trans rights activists are prepared to prioritise their political agenda over the important social issues underpinning the needless death of Ghey at the hands of two disturbed children.
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Take her name out of your dirty transphobe sexist mouth, people like yourself are partly responsible for this crime, how dare you, transphobia dous kill directly and indirectly, have you even read what they called her and about screaming like a boy or a girl? Are you actully complaining because they reported as a transgender girls stabbing when they had no choice as the media straight outed and dead named her like they do with every transperson in a major news story! The news reports are helpful to raise awareness about what is happening among young people rn this was a attack organised over months involving many people are interested in the story, both government the news corporations are not pro trans, far from it, most of the time transpeople are put out a nothing but negative, be happy you get to live your lifetime in the right body, without being forced to live as the wrong gender, seriously, the actual nerve of you 😡