On TruTV this morning, anchor-person Lisa Bloom cited statistics that “1 in 12 transgender persons are murdered.” I found this statistic “incredible,” as legal reporter Beth Karas said. So I quickly searched the web for the source of these statistics.

My first stop, as always, was the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which consolidates statistics from several government agencies. When the BJS did not seem to have murder statistics by victim sexual orientation, I went to the FBI. There I found numerical data on hate crimes.

According to the FBI in 2007 (the most recent year studied), 1, 512 hate crimes were directed at individuals because of their “sexual orientation.” Of those hate crimes, only 5 resulted in the death of the victim.

If you look at prior years’ tables, the number of hate crimes because of sexual orientation per year appear to be tending slightly upwards. That means that the number of homicides of transgender people (not the percentage)  since the time data began to be collected on hate crimes has been very small—much smaller than the number of hate-crime homicides for any other type of bias, especially race.

What I can’t find is a statistical analysis of the category of victim the FBI terms “sexual orientation,” since the FBI tables are broken down into “homosexual,” “male homosexual,” and “female homosexual.”

So, it is impossible for me to say whether or not “1 in 12 transgender persons” (roughly 8% of transgender persons) is murdered or not. But, assuming that transgender persons are a minority of the FBI’s categories, then the number of transgender persons murdered because of their sexual orientation (as opposed to other reasons) is clearly far less than 5 per year.

What’s my point? My point is that I feel it is unwise to stir up panic among any minority group. It does no good for those who may be potential victims of a hate-crime to live in fear—especially when the fears may (and probably are) overblown.

I certainly would urge parents of transgender teens to teach their children well: Every teen is vulnerable to assault; gay, lesbian, and transgender teens are probably especially vulnerable to assault. Teens feel immortal. Their hormones incline them to all sorts of risky behavior.