Deadnamed and Denied Justice: The Role of Deadnaming and Other Factors in Transgender Homicide Clearance

Abstract

Fatal violence against transgender people is a critical issue in contemporary America. There is also significant reason to believe that many transgender homicides are left unsolved. There has, however, been no systematic analysis of these patterns. This study uses data from a newly-collected, comprehensive database of transgender homicides occurring between 2010 and 2021 to conduct logistic regression analyses predicting the likelihood of clearance by arrest, accounting for the presence of deadnaming and various victim sociodemographic characteristics. Taken together, our research identifies two clear findings regarding the clearance of transgender homicide. First, we observe clear differences in the frequency of deadnaming by the police according to victim characteristics, such that incidents involving Black victims and victims with a history of involvement in sex work are more likely to involve deadnaming. Second, we find that homicide incidents in which transgender victims are deadnamed by the police are significantly and substantially less likely to be cleared by arrest, relative to transgender homicides. These findings suggest the critical importance of eliminating instances of deadnaming among police investigations of transgender homicides, not only for moral reasons, but also as a clear barrier to police efficacy in solving murder cases.