Let me start off by saying that in no way do I want to diminish the death of anybody, nor justify the murder of any innocent.

But geez, man, you have to set some priorities. And without a doubt, the White House is filled with people who have no idea how to do so.

More people are killed in America each year by lightening strikes https://t.co/sg5m129PNf https://t.co/TOU9X1y54x

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) November 20, 2023

It is clear to me that some lives matter more than others to this White House, and some hate crimes are far worse than others. The most obvious example of this phenomenon is how the White House links antisemitic acts of hate in the same category as Islamophobia, when objectively speaking antisemitic attacks happen at 7x-8x the rate of Islamophobic hate crimes and have skyrocketed dramatically since 10/7–unlike, as far as I can detect, attacks on Muslims.

The same holds true for the hate crimes directed at the alphabet people, especially transgender people.

Objectively speaking–and by this I mean to refer to murders per capita–there is no demographic that experiences fewer murders than transgender people, and with an “N” of 26 it is hard to discern a trend in which you can say that these crimes harm any group such as women of color disproportionately. Random chance can change proportions in a group that small.

Then, of course, you have to add in the fact that a substantial fraction of transgender people who are murdered engage in, shall we say, dangerous ways of making a living. This clouds the picture–were they killed for being transgender, or because they are in a naturally risky line of work?

As I said, I condone no murders and wish each of these victims were unharmed; but until we get the “lightning strike victim awareness day” I fail to see how or why this insignificant number of deaths in a group that is, statistically, the least murdered group in America, warrants White House notice.

According to the Williams Insitute, 1.6 million people identify as transgender. That means a murder rate of 1.6 per 100,000, or about 1/5th the average rate for the US as a whole. The murder rate for children in the US is 2.8 per 100,000.

Yes statistically speaking the average person is 5x as likely to die of murder than if they were transgender. Children are almost 2x likelier to die of murder.

Now things surely aren’t that simple, but you get the point. There is no “trans genocide” or hunting of trans people. As pointed out in the tweet, 17x as many people die from lightning strikes in the United States than trans people get murdered.

Seventeen times as many lightning strike deaths. Is there a death by lightning remembrance day? Of course not.

Something can simultaneously be a bad thing and also be, in the grand scheme of things, beneath the attention of the White House. It is not binary. It is a question of scale and perspective, which are sorely lacking in all public debates.

It is infuriating. For instance, with regard to January 6th, my attitude is that 1) it was bad, and 2) it was hardly worth being in the top stories of 2021, no less 2023. It was a bunch of stupid people who rioted or behaved badly, but compared to the 2020 riots it was hardly a big deal. Many yahoos got out of hand, but the idea that it was an insurrection is ridiculous.

What, they were going to defeat the US Army and Marines with flags? I bet 75% of that crowd–at least–owned guns. Did they just forget to bring them to an insurrection, or were they just going to a protest and got out of hand?

Same thing here. Yes, the 26 murders were bad, for any reason, but compared to other things the White House should be focused on I would say this is number 1,907,982 on the list. How about focusing on street crime in our cities? Far more people die there, and the White House seems indifferent.

Yet by highlighting this issue and forcing people like me to point out how silly it is, the White House still wins. I look like a heel, indifferent to the suffering of transgender people, and callous about their murder. I am not. I just want my government to focus on issues in proportion to the scale of the problem.

Want to reduce deaths by murder? Focus on crime in the inner city, where tens of thousands die. White House policies have made that problem worse, not better.