Whenever Nicky Batchie walks around Peekskill, New York, or the bustling streets of New York City, she always carries a knife and a taser in her purse.
Bathcie, who is 32 and transgender, has lived in New York her whole life. She began transitioning when she was 18, the city long known as a sanctuary for the LGBTQ+ community had once felt like a safe haven to her.
But with hate crimes against the queer community on the rise in New York City and across the nation, that feeling of safety has evaporated. These days, Batchie is always on guard.
“I don’t feel like anywhere is really safe for trans people or LGBTQ+ people period,” Batchie said.
The number of hate crimes targeting the LGBTQ+ community surged by nearly 20 percent in 2022 in the United States compared to the previous year, FBI statistics show. In New York City, there were 96 confirmed hate crimes based on gender identity and sexuality (including both gay males and females) in 2022, according to NYPD statistics – this has left many in the LGBTQ+ community struggling to cope and live their everyday lives with the ongoing threat of violence.
“It’s been really, really hard,” Batchie said. “But especially in the beginning, I used to have like really bad panic attacks.”
According to a report published on KFF.org in June of 2023, 67 percent of LGBTQ+ individuals reported needing a mental health service over the past two years – only half of that 67 percent actually sought and received mental health services.
In a study of a transgender woman of color done in 2013, findings showed that “exposure to discriminatory events and discrimination positively associated with depression symptom odds. Increased transgender identity associated with increased coping self-efficacy, which negatively associated with depression symptom odds.”
Melissa Sklarz, the government relations liaison at Equality New York and candidate for State Assembly District 25, says it’s important to mention that the many people who were assaulted for their gender identity in 2022, may have also fallen into the 6,567 race-based FBI-reported hate crimes as well.
“Everything about violence against trans women is just another form of racism. It’s amazing how difficult it is to be a person of color and trans, and yet white folks still seem to manage and navigate this system. 30 years ago, the idea of being out and trans was brand new. And in that initial cohort was mostly white people,” Sklarz said.
Sklarz was the first transgender-elected official in New York and has served on many trans rights legislative committees, including the Stonewall Democrats as well as the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats – she was even a delegate for the DNC in 2016. Her goal is for a more just, fair and trans-inclusive future.
In the 1990s, Sklarz and many others in the community held an anti-trans violence rally for Amanda Milan, a 25-year-old trans woman. They demonstrated outside of Port Authority, where Milan was sexually harassed and then stabbed to death by two men.
Fast-forward to 2013, Islan Nettles, a black trans woman, is beaten to death in Harlem just after midnight by James Dixon. Sklarz and other organizers came together for what felt like the 100th time to them, to honor the loss of another beautiful life.
“It was really one of the first times that the community came together publicly. Everyone came together to support… And that created the black trans movement here in New York that leads to today, where we have events with thousands and thousands of people showing up,” Sklarz says.
In the past year alone the headlines have reflected a rise in LGBTQ+ hate crimes – where a trans woman is shot at in Chicago and called a “disgrace,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In Philadelphia, Joel Martinez pistol-whipped and then shot a young transgender woman, according to NBC 10.
In January of this year, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, a man in South Carolina was charged with a hate crime after he murdered a young transgender woman.
And on August 17th, a typical sticky NYC summer day, a young trans woman was brutally attacked while waiting for the J-train at the Myrtle Avenue Station in Bed-Stuy.
Ian Willams approached the 22-year-old victim, who we will call Jane Doe, and made a sexually explicit gesture and then grabbed her butt.
Jane was simply waiting for the J train to arrive.
She confronted Williams, and he pushed her to the ground and punched her multiple times while saying:
“Why would I grope you I am not a faggot, and you’re a faggot you fucking faggot, I am going to fucking kill you, I am going to throw you on the tracks.”
Jane was left with swelling, bruises and a fractured nose.
The J train approached and Jane stepped on, and Williams stepped on too. He continued to beat her until bystanders eventually stepped in.
Williams simply walked to another train car after people intervened and removed him from Jane.
About 52 miles from Brooklyn where the crime against Jane Doe took place, Batchie remembers being 29 at a Walmart in Peekskill, New York with her niece. Two employees passed by her and called her a “disgusting faggot piece of shit” who was trying “too hard to be a bitch.”
When she was 31 she was in line at a gas station when she heard two older people behind her talking about her as if she was a thing and referring to her as an ‘it.’
Standing in line, she heard the older man say, “I can’t believe IT is just allowed to walk around like that. IT should be taken out back and shot dead.”
The older woman replied, “As soon as the mother found out what IT was, she should’ve taken care of it… and the mom should be taken care of too for letting IT be in this world.”
These are just two examples of the harassment and hatred that Batchie has faced for being a transgender woman.
“I’ve had a lot of experiences like that where I’m just living my life and someone will say like faggot or disgusting,” Batchie said.
While Batchie says she’s never been physically assaulted, she has been verbally ridiculed so much that she fears it may someday turn violent.
In Tampa, about 1,177 miles away from Peekskill, Jordan Parades is getting ready for a drag show at a local club. He’s getting ready with the other Queens in the back – applying his makeup, putting on his wig and heels. When Jordan’s in drag, he goes by she/her, or Jai. When he’s out of drag, he’s Jordan.
He has the privilege of leaving at the end of the night and not fear being sexually assaulted and beaten on his commute home.
“Though I’m a drag queen, I have lots of friends who can’t take that off before leaving the bar. They face the risk of hate crimes day to day,” Parades said.
Jordan doesn’t go out in public as Jai very often. While he says he doesn’t quite fear it, he is aware of the potential risk he may face if someone assumes he’s trans.
“I know each day when I present in my drag that there is a possibility of this happening,” Parades said.
Like Batchie, Parades has taken the necessary steps to ensure that he never has to see the day he is harassed or violently attacked for simply being ‘Jai.’
“Over the past few years, I’ve started to be more aware of my surroundings, along with preparing myself for any situation. I always share my location, carry a blade, and walk in groups,” Parades said.
At only 24 years old, after being fortunate enough to not have faced any violence himself, Parades has become almost used to seeing crimes like the one that happened to Jane Doe.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time I’ve heard of acts like this,” Parades said.
For Batchie, the crime hit too close to home.
“A random guy will hit on you and if you don’t like it, they get mad… I just felt like that could have been me,” Batchie said.
Sklarz added that erratic behavior from men who are attracted to trans women is nothing new.
“My observation on this is simple – trans women attract men, all sorts of men, and men that get attracted to trans women have all sorts of feelings, and they’re very conflicted, and they don’t know how to deal with them, and they act out in a lot of difficult, terrible ways. The number of anti-trans violence that is preceded by a sexual encounter is beyond tragic,” Sklarz said.
Elena Waldman, an Administration Manager at Translatinx Network and a Self Defense coach shares the same sentiments as Sklarz that this violence is nothing new.
“What happens on the street, the violence against trans individuals is old news for us,” Waldman said. “We don’t need to look at the symptom, which is us getting beat up on the streets – we need to roll that tape back and look at the culture. And that culture is fueled by homophobia and transphobia.”
Waldman also shared similar thoughts on the intersectionality of race, gender and sexual orientation and how that plays into the reporting of hate crimes, specifically in New York City.
“If you are a white trans person who sort of passes for being somewhere on the binary, you can report a hate crime in New York City. If you’re brown, black, if you’re not documented, if you’re afraid to go into the police department, or if you’re in sex work you don’t have that same privilege,” Waldman said.
Alexis Cariello is the Director of Programs at the Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE). She and the staff at CAE work tirelessly to educate those who feel vulnerable to violence, as well as those who may often consider themselves bystanders, how to fight back and intervene if need be.
“It is normal to not know how to respond because we exist in a world where violence is more normalized… it’s more normalized in everything we do every day,” Cariello said.
CAE’s goal isn’t only to make individuals feel safe in the event that they come face to face with violence, it’s also to ensure that all people they serve have the space to be who they are in the most freeing way possible.
“Yes, everyone deserves to feel safe, but they also deserve to feel real joy. Safety is the bare minimum,” Cariello said. “It’s about coming together and saying, ‘We support you and who you are.”
Cariello made sure to not only highlight all the organizations that CAE works with in order to have the right understanding of the community they serve, but she also made it a point to highlight the real way that change will come.
“The most important thing is to take leadership from people who are impacted by hate violence if you truly want to address it. We are constantly partnering with LGBTQ+ organizations to understand how we need to show up and the things that do and don’t make them feel safe,” Cariello said.
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Sources:
- Nicky Batchie: communicated via IG: infamousznicky
- Melissa Sklarz: [email protected]
- Jordan Parades: 239-281-5686
- Elena Waldman: [email protected] + [email protected]
- Alexis Cariello: [email protected]