Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has renewed the city's Trans Femicide State of Emergency, recognising that trans women face targeted, hatred-driven violence that deserves a named response. The New York Post called it absurd. It isn't. A state of emergency is not a body count; it is recognition of a climate of fear, and the mockery the announcement received is itself part of what the declaration is responding to.

What actually happened

Mayor Johnson posted on X announcing that his administration was renewing the Trans Femicide State of Emergency, first declared in 2024. The framework, in his words, is designed to centre the voices and lived experiences of trans Chicagoans and build toward a safer, more connected city. He described the exclusion and barriers that too many trans people face in spaces that should feel safe.

The New York Post's response was to count bodies. One trans woman has been killed in Chicago so far this year, the paper noted, against 198 homicides overall. The implication was clear: the mayor is performing identity politics while real people die. Thousands of X users piled on with mockery and derision.

That reveals something important about how this conversation always goes.

The body-count argument is the wrong argument

The trans woman killed in Chicago this year was Davonta Curtis, 31 years old. Her boyfriend beat her to death with a hammer while she slept. He is now facing first-degree murder charges. That is a specific, intimate, targeted killing of a trans woman. It is not a random homicide. It is not gang violence. It is the murder of a woman by someone who shared her bed, in a pattern the Human Rights Campaign has documented nationally: 42% of trans murder victims in 2024 were killed by a romantic or sexual partner, friend, or family member.

That is not a statistic that dissolves into general homicide figures. It is a distinct pattern of targeted violence, and it deserves a distinct response.

The New York Post's framing treats volume as the only legitimate basis for concern. By that logic, you would never name domestic violence as a category, because most victims of violence are not killed by partners. You would never name hate crimes, because most murders are not hate crimes. You would never declare a public health emergency around suicide, because more people die of other causes. The logic is not neutral; it is a device for erasing specificity.

Fourteen deaths in eight years

Between 2016 and 2024, 14 transgender people were killed in Chicago, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The Post treats that number as evidence the emergency is overblown. I read it differently. Chicago has a trans population that is a small fraction of the city's overall population. A disproportionate rate of targeted killing within that group is precisely what a state of emergency framework exists to address. You do not wait until the number is large enough to satisfy a hostile newspaper's editorial judgment before you name what is happening.

Transfemicide has a specific definition: the targeted killing of a trans woman motivated by transphobic and misogynistic hatred. It is not a synonym for homicide. Using a precise word for a precise thing is not fantastical nonsense, whatever X commenters may say. It is how you build a policy response that actually reaches the people who need it.

The mockery is the point

I keep coming back to the responses the mayor's post attracted. "That's not a thing." "Who is paying you to say such fantastical nonsense?" "I am going to be charitable and assume you must be drunk right now."

People ask sometimes why trans women, and particularly trans women of colour, describe feeling unsafe in public spaces, in intimate relationships, in interactions with institutions. This is why. When a city's mayor names the violence they face, thousands of people respond by laughing. The laughter is not evidence that the violence is imaginary. It is evidence of the climate the declaration is trying to change.

Several commenters asked why the emergency doesn't cover all homicide victims. It is a reasonable question on its face, and the answer is that it does not replace Chicago's response to general violence; it adds a specific framework for a specific pattern. Protecting trans Chicagoans does not subtract from protecting anyone else. These are not competing priorities. A city can do both.

What a state of emergency does

A state of emergency is not a claim that one group's deaths are more valuable than another's. It is a policy instrument: a formal recognition that a particular pattern of harm exists and that it requires a named, coordinated response. It creates accountability. It directs resources. It sends a signal to the people affected that the city sees them.

For trans women in Chicago, many of them women of colour living with intersecting vulnerabilities, that signal matters. It says: your life is not an edge case. Your safety is not a niche concern. You are a Chicagoan and this city will look after you.

The New York Post thinks that is woke. I think it is governance. And I am glad at least one major city is doing it.

If there is a news story you would like me to cover then just let Sammy know.

Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and advocate for trans rights and gender diversity.