This is a worldwide list of people who were killed for being transgender. The list does not include suicides, accidental deaths, or premature deaths. Some of the perpetrators in these cases cite the trans panic defense. Violence against transgender people is also known as trans bashing.

Background The murder of trans people has served as an impetus to the establishment of the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR).

In 2019, the American Medical Association called the violence against trans people an "epidemic".

In 2020, ABC News "independently confirmed 34 violent deaths of transgender and gender non-conforming people in 2020 at the time of publication." This was published by Good Morning America. According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 57 transgender and gender non-conforming people were killed in 2021, surpassing the total from 2020 of 44 people.

There are no federal or state databases tracking anti-transgender violence in the United States. Since 2013, Human Rights Campaign has collected data on trans and gender-nonconforming victims of homicide. In 2022, Insider created a database 175 transgender homicide victims in the United States and Puerto Rico between 2017 and 2021. Both reports have found the majority of victims were Black transgender women. Insider's report found that half were killed by people they'd been sexually intimate with, over a third were unsolved (with the murders of black women disproportionately unsolved), only 28 resulted in convictions, and only one resulted in a hate crime charge. Statistics are likely under reported due to law enforcement and media routinely misgendering or deadnaming transgender homicide victims.

A 2025 analysis of media coverage of trans homicides in 2022 found that while previous research had shown the media frequently downplayed transphobia as the primary cause of violence towards trans people, some recent studies pointed towards a shift wherein journalists discuss broader issues of transphobia, genderism, and systemic racism during their coverage of anti-trans homicides.

A 2023 analysis argued there exists a "trifecta of violence" wherein violent ideologies, violent government policies, and interpersonal violence directly relate to one another. It found that anti-trans rhetoric and anti-trans legislation were positively correlated with trans homicides.

Before 1990 Central America The Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa massacred forty Indigenous persons in the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 by having them fed alive to dogs on charges of practicing sodomy, claiming they had worn women's clothing and engaged in sex acts with one another despite appearing to be male. Modern historians believe that some or all of the victims of the massacre were transfeminine and argue that they were killed for transgressing gender roles. Such persecution of transfeminine natives continued under Spanish rule, with those who were assigned male at birth but presented as female being charged with sodomy and executed or imprisoned.

Nazi Germany

The Nazi Regime targeted, imprisoned, and killed an indeterminate number of transgender people, especially trans women, attempting to eradicate a relatively large community that had thrived in Weimar Germany. Like many sent to concentration camps, the ultimate fates of transgender prisoners are usually unrecorded, but records exist of a small number of named victims. Liddy Bacroff, a trans woman, was killed in the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1943. A trans woman recorded as "H. Bode" is known to have been killed in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

Indonesia

The Indonesian 1960s Darul Islam regime in South Sulawesi also targeted transgender individuals for violent persecution. Long home to a variety of transgender and third-gender identities, the ascendant government cracked down on ceremonies and rituals of the non-binary bissu community. Individuals were subjected to public head-shaving, while some were tortured and murdered; reports from the time indicate bissu were given the choice of detransition or death. In Bone, the bissu Sanro Makgangke was decapitated, and their head was displayed publicly as a threat to others.

United States Transgender sex workers Tanya Moore and Tina Rodriguez were picked up by two men in Philadelphia on 30 June 1986. Their mutilated bodies were found on fire in Middletown Township on 3 July. In 2001, an informant told police that they had been picked up by members of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club, who then killed them when they discovered they were transgender.

1990s

1991 – Sonia Rescalvo Zafra, a 45-year-old transgender woman, was killed in the Parc de la Ciutadella in Barcelona by six neo-Nazi skinheads who kicked her and her friend Dori repeatedly in the head while they were lying on the floor. Her death spurred the LGBT community to publicly fight against violence. 1993 – Brandon Teena, a 21-year-old transgender man, was raped and murdered in Falls City, Nebraska, US, on December 31.Chris Summers, The victims of prejudice, BBC News, 26 December 2003. Two men were convicted of first-degree murder in the incident, one of whom was sentenced to death. The crime became the subject of the Academy Award-winning film Boys Don't Cry. 1995 – Chanelle Pickett, a 23-year-old transgender woman, was strangled in Boston, Massachusetts on November 20 after spending the night at a man's apartment. The defendant, William C. Palmer, originally pled what may be the earliest known legal use of the trans panic defense. However, Palmer abandoned this story after the victim's sister revealed that he had known Pickett and been aware of her trans status.Doherty, William F. "Witness says accused killer knew beforehand transsexual was male: [City Edition]." Boston Globe, 23 April 1997, pp. B, 2:3. Her death was cited as part of the impetus behind the establishment of Transgender Day of Remembrance. 1996 – Also in Massachusetts, the body of Deborah "Debbie" Forte, a 56-year-old transgender woman, was discovered on May 15, having been strangled, beaten severely, and stabbed repeatedly in the breasts and chest. Her killer, Michael Thompson, was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Thompson's coworker testified that after the murder, Thompson had come to work and confessed that he had gone home with Forte and begun "messing around", before killing her after realizing she had a penis. 1998 – Rita Hester was stabbed to death in her apartment by an unknown assailant. Her murder would become one of the major factors in the establishment of the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

2000s 2000 – Amanda Milan, a 25-year-old transgender woman, was walking by Times Square, Manhattan, New York City, when Dwayne McCuller walked up and began to harass and threaten her. Milan stood up to him and asked him if he wanted to fight. Witnesses said he declined. As he walked away, another young man, Eugene Celestine, told McCuller he had a knife. McCuller grabbed it, and stabbed Milan in the neck. A man named David Anderson reportedly helped McCuller escape from the scene. Milan died soon after at St. Vincent's Hospital. Transgender activist Sylvia Rivera worked towards seeing that Milan's death was investigated, and organized Milan's political funeral along with demonstrations claiming a disconnection of transgender rights from the larger LGBT communities. After Milan's murder, Rivera reformed a transgender activist group, Street Trans Activist Revolutionaries (STAR). Rivera cited the crime among the reasons to add a broad definition of gender to the New York City Human Rights Law. 2001 – Fred Martinez Jr., a transgender 16-year-old American from Cortez, Colorado, was bludgeoned to death with a rock in June 2001 by an 18-year-old man. Martinez' killer was sentenced in 2002 to serve between 4 and 48 years for the murder, and was paroled in 2019. 2002 – Gwen Araujo of Newark, California, a 17-year-old Hispanic transgender girl, was killed by four men, two of whom she had had sexual relations with, who beat and strangled her after discovering she was transgender. Two defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not convicted on the requested hate crime enhancements. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a trans panic defense – an extension of the gay panic defense – was employed. 2003 – Nireah Johnson was a 17-year-old African American transgender girl who was murdered along with her friend Brandie Coleman in Indianapolis, Indiana, by Paul Moore. Paul Moore was initially sexually attracted to Johnson, and then discovered that she was transgender. This led him to light her car on fire while she and Coleman were inside. Moore was sentenced to 120 years in prison for the murders while his half-brother, Clarence McGee, received a 10-year sentence as an accomplice. 2003 – Janice Roberts was an American transgender woman who was kidnapped by serial killer William Devin Howell on 18 June. Howell later told an informant that he tried to engage Roberts in a sexual act and strangled her when he realized that she was transgender. 2003 – Shelby Tracy Tom was a Canadian transgender woman working as a sex worker in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, who was killed by Jatin Patel on 27 May 2003. According to Patel, while having sex with her, she noticed Tom's surgery scars, and she panicked as a result and strangled her. The prosecutor attempted to classify Tom's death as a hate crime, but Supreme Court of British Columbia Justice Patrick Dohm ruled that the crime was not motivated by hate, because Patel did not know of Tom's transgender identity when meeting her, and thus could not have targeted her for it. Patel's defense attorney used a trans panic defense on her behalf. She pleaded guilty to a charge of manslaughter, and was sentenced to nine years in jail. Patel subsequently came out as a transgender woman. 2006 – Gisberta Salce Júnior, a Brazilian homeless transgender woman, was murdered in Porto, Portugal, by a group of 14 youths between 12 and 16 years old, who tortured and raped her for three days, and finally threw her, still alive, into a well over 15 meters deep, where she drowned. Eleven of the minors received minimal sentences of under 13 months in a semi-open education center of the Instituto de Reinserção Social, and two received sentences of additional education. Her death became a symbol of violence against women and the LGBT community, and shortly after, laws protecting trans women were introduced in Portugal. 2007 – Roberto González Onrubia, a transgender man, was killed by two women who had found refuge in his apartment, in Madrid, Spain. Both women had been mistreating Roberto physically and psychologically for a year before they killed him on 29 August 2007 with a brutal hit on the head. Both women were condemned to 19 years in prison. 2008 – Angie Zapata was a transgender woman who was murdered on 17 July 2008, in Greeley, Colorado. Her death was the first case involving a transgender victim to be ruled a hate crime. Colorado is one of eleven states that protect transgender victims under hate crime laws in the United States. Allen Andrade, who learned eighteen-year-old Angie was transgender after meeting her and spending several days with her, beat her to death with a fire extinguisher. In his arrest affidavit, Andrade called Zapata "it", and during his trial, a tape was played of a phone conversation in which he told his girlfriend "gay things need to die". Andrade's attorneys used a trans panic defense. On 22 April 2009, Andrade was found guilty of first degree murder, hate crimes, and car/ID theft. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.