WASHINGTON (ABP) – Three Baptist groups released a joint statement Oct. 11 calling for action to stop a series of shootings and violent attacks targeting transgender victims in Washington, D.C.
Leaders of the Alliance of Baptists, the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists and Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America called on community leaders to stop a “blight of violence and hatred” against transgender victims in the nation’s capital.
Police have hesitated to describe a rash of violence between the murder of a transgender woman in late July and a Sept. 12 incident in which a transgender woman was shot in the neck as hate crimes, but they have stepped up patrols amid calls from Washington’s transgender community demanding more action.
The joint Baptist statement voiced “great distress” about “an increasing pattern of violence" against transgender persons in the nation’s capital, including seven muggings in August and September and an Aug. 26 incident where an off-duty police officer fired on a group of transgender individuals in a car.
“It is appropriate to remind ourselves that the defining of any group of persons as ‘other’ in such a way as to make violence toward and/or oppression of them acceptable is contrary to the gospel of Christ,” the Baptist leaders said. “We need further to acknowledge that many of these persons are our brothers and sisters in Christ and that all are part of the creation that God loves.”
“Finally, we need to remember that Jesus told us that as we do to the least, we also do to him,” the statement continued. “Consequently, when we stand in solidarity with the transgender victims of violence, we also stand in solidarity with the Christ who suffers with them.”
The statement called on faith and community leaders “to work with the transgender community to find ways to end this violence and restore the transgender community’s faith in law enforcement.” It asked that local police be made more aware of the safety needs of transgender persons and “actively combat stereotypes regarding these individuals.”
It also called on the D.C. faith community, and “particularly our Baptist brothers and sisters,” to confront “the blindness that has allowed many to let violence toward this community be a ‘non-issue.’”
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.