Time has put transgender activist Laverne Cox on its cover at the same time that an article discusses violence against the LGBT community, particularly the homicide rate among transwomen of color. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs have found a 21-percent increase in the number of hate incidents against the LGBT community in 2013 when compared to the year before. A total of 460 incidents were identified, but LGBT survivors of hate attacks were less likely to report assaults to law enforcement than in previous years. Of those reported, only 24 percent were characterized as bias crimes as compared to 77 percent of attacks in 2012. Forty-seven percent of victims knew the perpetrators.
However, this step forward did not come without any backlash. An article by Kevin Williamson that appeared in The National Review this week and that was reprinted in the Chicago Sun-Times claimed Cox was “not a woman, but an effigy of a woman.” He goes on to say a number of things that most rational people will find ignorant and hurtful and that thus will not be repeated here (if you’d like to read it, you can see the full-text of the article here). The uproar that arose over this quickly led to the Sun-Times retracting the article. The National Review is still standing by it, however.
