While transgender women in the LGBTQA community are discussed often, they seem to be overlooked or disregarded by most of the society they live in. When they’re not ignored, they’re often targeted in negative ways. From online trolling to physical violence, it seems that the societal interpretation of these women is lacking in respect.

But does not talking about them come from merely a lack of knowledge or a place of hate? While researching for my “Transgender Women in History” story, I found it incredibly hard to get someone to speak up. Some people said that they don’t have enough experience or knowledge on the subject, and some just didn’t respond at all. It makes me wonder – why is it that we don’t know enough about them, despite trans women having been around for centuries?

Even searching for and finding statistics about trans women on Google is hard, and Google can find information on almost anything you could think of.

We should be talking about trans women.

They are in danger, and society should be protecting them. In 2013, 72 percent of victims of hate violence homicides were transgender women, according to avp.org. Just last year, in 2017, at least 25 trans women were killed by police or as a result of hate crimes, according to hrc.org.

Besides the homicides and crime rates, simply reading comments on sites, such as Facebook when transgender women are mentioned, is horrifying. Some people are so adamant about thinking that these women are not “real women” and argue with people about it. Many self-identified feminists believe that trans women are just men, which goes against the inclusivity that feminism is about.

Trans women and trans youth are scared to be themselves because of these comments on social media. Those responses tell them that people are out there who hate them for no reason besides the fact that they live as what they are — women. Transgender women are afraid of being hurt or killed.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to research about the sexual assault against them, since recorded statistics for transgender women are difficult to find — and that’s another crime committed against this community.

If anything, we, as a society, should be letting people be themselves. Someone being transgender doesn’t harm the people around them.

These are women that we should stand with, through all of their struggles.

If there is no one to be an ally for trans women, how will they be helped? We should all fight for human rights.