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The state has a hate-crimes law, but it does not cover crimes motivated by a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity.
The mother of Pauly Likens, a 14-year-old transgender girl who was killed and dismembered in Pennsylvania last summer, is calling for expansion of a state hate-crimes law to cover crimes motivated by the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
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Likens’s mother, Jen McClure, spoke Wednesday at a Transgender Day of Remembrance vigil in Pittsburgh. She and others have urged state legislators to take action to amend the law.
“Pauly was a beautiful, brave 14-year-old whose only crime was wanting to be herself, to be happy with who she was and live her best life,” McClure said at the event, according to TV station WPXI. “The hate has got to stop. Laws need to change.”
Likens’s remains were found in early July in a lake in Clark, Pa., in the northwestern part of the state. She was last seen alive in person June 22. DaShawn Watkins, 29, is charged with murder in the first degree, aggravated assault – attempts to cause serious bodily injury or causes injury with extreme indifference, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with/fabricating physical evidence. He has pleaded not guilty. He is jailed in Mercer County, Pa., and is set to go on trial next year.
Pennsylvania is one of 13 states that have a hate crimes law but do not cover crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Eleven have laws that include sexual orientation but not gender identity, and four have no hate-crimes law at all. Hate-crime laws often allow for enhanced sentencing of those convicted of the underlying crime.
Federal law — the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, signed into law by President Barack Obama — covers sexual orientation and gender identity, but not all crimes can be prosecuted at the federal level.
The Pennsylvania Youth Congress, an LGBTQ+ rights group, has asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Western Pennsylvania to consider federal hate-crimes charges in Likens’s death, but there has been no response, said Jason Landau Goodman, the group’s board chair. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said there would be no comment on investigations.
“There have been at least 27 murders of transgender-affected people [The Advocate counts 30] here in the United States, just in the past year,” Landau Goodman said, according to WPXI.
“We know from members of our local community in Mercer County that they alleged murderer was targeting trans women and femmes that day, to attack and kill,” he added.
State Rep. Dan Frankel of Pittsburgh, a Democrat, has introduced LGBTQ-inclusive hate-crimes legislation in the past and plans to reintroduce it in the new session, he told WPXI. “Trans women continue to suffer as victims of violence, but Pennsylvania doesn’t even acknowledge that crimes motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias exist. Today, I am thinking of all the people who love and miss Amariey and Pauly, and I renew my promise to them that I will keep up the fight in Harrisburg to pass my bills to track, prevent and address hate crimes,” he said Wednesday.
Amariey is Amariey Lei (some sources give her name as Amarey Lej), a 21-year-old Black trans woman who was shot and killed in Wilkinsburg, a community near Pittsburgh, on January 1, 2022. At the vigil, speakers called for further action on her case as well. The Allegheny County police have been investigating, but no charges have been brought. They ask that anyone with information contact their tip line, (833) ALL-TIPS.
This article was updated to include sourcing from local affiliate WPXI.
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