"So whatever way we look at it, there is not an epidemic of murder against trans people."

The way a trans woman at my company explained this was that if only trans people put pronouns in their email signatures, then they're outing themselves by doing so, and that's dangerous because there's an epidemic of murder against trans people.

Okay, here is where we get into very dangerous waters.

The "epidemic of murder" is based around reported murder rates, and when you dig into those, it turns out a lot (not all, but a lot) of the trans women killed are sex workers.

Which is already a dangerous profession, even for cis women. So, was Susie Sparkle killed because she was trans, or because she was a streetwalker? How do you distinguish?

As for the figures for the "epidemic", if I am to believe the Human Rights Campaign website, in 2020 44 trans people were murdered.

Not 4,000. Not 400. 44. That may not have been for the entire year, because this sentence is a little unclear: "Since HRC began tracking this data in 2013, advocates have never seen such a high number at this point in the year."

'At this point in the year' sounds as if the year is not yet over. Still, if 44 murders are your highest ever rate, I am sorry if I sound unsympathetic but it's hardly an "epidemic".

And it's not necessarily because the victims were trans; they may have been killed for many of the reasons cis people get killed:

These victims were killed by acquaintances, partners or strangers, some of whom have been arrested and charged, while others have yet to be identified. Some of these cases involve clear anti-transgender bias. In others, the victim’s transgender status may have put them at risk in other ways, such as forcing them into unemployment, poverty, homelessness and/or survival sex work.

Now, getting figures on trans etc. population is like trying to find hen's teeth, it's almost impossible to get anything concrete and reliable, especially since there is a recent rise in people identifying as trans etc. So I'm having to work on "guesstimates" here.

So taking this figure, let's work out the trans murder rate to see if it's an "epidemic of murder".

1.4 million adults identify as transgender.

44 out of 1.4 million works out to be 0.003%.

Figures for 2020 homicides are supposedly a lot higher than last year, due to all the situations around BLM protests, police lack of response, etc. so let's take 2019 as more representative.

FBI figures say that "victims with reported sex" came to 14,027 homicides in total: 10,988 male and 3,009 female. Out of a total population of 328 million (roughly 51% female, 49% male) that means a murder rate of 10,988 out of 161,000,000 for men and 3,009 out of 167,000,000 for women.

For women, that's 0.002%. For men, that's 0.007%. That means the trans murder rate is only slightly higher than the female murder rate, and much lower than the male murder rate.

Let's look at that another way: out of 14,027 murders that's 78% for men, 21% for women - and if we go 44 murders out of 14,027, that's 0.3% for trans persons.

So whatever way we look at it, there is not an epidemic of murder against trans people.