I’m busy today rushing around doing holiday errands, and then feeding the outdoor birds, and getting groceries. We have warm weather in my super red state, so it was a good time to go outside. But I saw this article a few days ago and wanted to say something about it. It seems like the kind of article I should add to my blog, because it will be useful to bring up in a debate.

Here is the article from The Federalist, and note that the article is by a conservative LGBT person.

In 2024 there were no reported murders of a trans-identifying person due to anti-trans bias in the United States. This might be a surprise, based on the routine headlines declaring that violence against transgender Americans is only getting worse. The Human Rights Campaign, one of the more prominent LGBT advocacy organizations, provides a list each year of reported murders of trans-identifying people.

The HRC – a secular left hate group – wants people to think that these murders are all being committed by white Presbyterian married couples who attend church weekly. And they are doing it because they are filled with hate. But I know enough about debating this issue to know that most of these murders are going to be 1) drug or prostitution murders that are caused by the victim putting themselves in very very risky situations, for example drug use and / or prostitution, or 2) intimate partner violence.

And the author leads with an example of that:

Discussing the death of Quanesha Shantel, Human Rights Campaign Director of Community Engagement for the Transgender Justice Initiative Tori Cooper argued, “It’s time for communities across this country to reckon with the fact that their silence makes them complicit. Hateful stereotypes, rhetoric and legislation fuels violence against transgender people.” This despite Shantel, whose legal name was Juquan Hamilton, being allegedly murdered by his former romantic partner, Jeremy Reynolds, who reportedly was furious over their recent breakup.

You might remember from our podcast episode on same-sex marriage that LGBT relationships, expecilally lesbian and trans relationships, then to have much higher rates of intimate partner violence. In fact, many famous murders that are labeled “hate crimes” by the secualr left are intimate partner violence. Consider the case of Matthew Sheppard, trying to claim that it was an anti-LGBT hate crime. Actually, according to LGBT activist publication The Advocate, “the perpetrator and victim not only knew each other but also had sex together, bought drugs from one another, and partied together”.

But let’s stay with The Federalist article, and see the details on these murders:

Looking at each of 29 such reported cases in 2024, the three most common categories are domestic violence (6), altercations (6), and accidents (4). Of all cases, four did not have sufficient information reported by authorities to make a determination on what kind of violence occurred. The deaths also included a suicide, the highly publicized death of Dagny (Nex) Benedict, a victim of a mass shooting, and a random act of violence.

Kita Bee and Honee Daniels were both killed in what HRC calls “hit-and-run” accidents — they involved negligent behavior and both drivers have been arrested. Jazlynn Johnson, 18, was allegedly accidentally shot and killed by his friend, 17-year-old Cesar Sandoval, while showing off a new gun, according to reports.

Finally, Santonio Coleman, who identified as a gay man who sometimes dressed as a woman, was found dead on a park trail, but he may have fallen, and no suspects have been identified. The headline reporting Coleman’s death states, “Family shocked after loved one brutally killed while walking on popular trail in Athens,” despite no current indications from police investigating the incident that Coleman was attacked.

The “altercation” category of reports indicates a fight occurred in which a trans-identifying person was killed. A transgender man, Righteous TK Hill, was allegedly shot by his cousin, Jaylen Hill, in an argument. Robert Clark Jr., named as Yella Clark, was killed in a prison fight. Clark was serving life in prison for the murder of another inmate while he was serving a 75-year sentence for armed robbery.

A 20-year-old named Dylan Gurley was reportedly stabbed to death in a dispute over money while staying in an abandoned house with a fellow homeless person, Michael Tooley. Another trans-identifying person listed, known only as Redd or Barbie, was killed by an unknown assailant in a mass shooting on a street corner while talking with several other people. Another homeless person, Andrea Doria Dos Passos, was attacked while sleeping by another homeless person in what appears to be a random assault; police have not reported a motive. The suspect has been charged.

And the HRC also misleads about race. They talk about the race of the victims, but they don’t mention the race of the attackers, because they want you to think that this is white on black crime.

Despite 82 percent of known suspects in the deaths of black trans-identifying individuals being black themselves, based on an evaluation of the reported cases, the HRC demands, “Young trans women of color — particularly Black trans women, continue to be disproportionately affected.”

Year after year, these reports end up the same. Domestic violence, interpersonal fights, random violence, and, more frequently, complete accidents, make up the majority of reported deaths of trans-identified people. Hate crimes do occur — they are simply very rare, upon review of reported cases.

Unfortunately, the constant repetition of this false narrative, always using alarming language and insisting on placing the blame politically, creates an environment of fear and hatred in the LGBT community. It sends a message that transgender identity is a privileged status that demands special protections from the government and the public. When every reported violent death of a trans-identifying person is elevated as a social failure requiring national mourning and outrage, the impact of real hate crimes is diminished.

This same deception that Black Lives Matter advocates do, when complaining about the handful of unarmed blacks who are killed by white police officers every year. BLM leaders don’t talk about the numbers for black-on-black crime, which are far, far greater. We did a whole episode of Knight and Rose Show on those numbers.

By the way, you might have noticed that there seems to be a higher rate of violence being committed BY the transgender community, like the attack on Congresswoman Nancy Mace from a few days ago. But you never hear the Biden-Harris regime talking about that.

The Discovery Institute has a new video out in their series on intelligent design, about so-called “junk DNA”. Basically, there are two sides to the origins issue: the design-deniers and the design-recognizers. (And theistic evolutionists belong in the former group). These two groups make different predictions about the information in the human genome. And we can check their predictions.

First, here’s the new video:

Here is description from Evolution News:

The myth of junk DNA is much more than just an evolutionary idea that turned out to be mistaken. As the new episode of Long Story Short makes amusingly clear, it also reflects a “battle of predictions” with intelligent design. Going back to the 1970s, evolutionists predicted that, in line with their premise of a randomly generated genome, DNA would turn out to be full of Darwinian debris, playing no functional role but merely parasitic (atheist Richard Dawkins’s term) on the small portion of functional DNA.

Proponents of intelligent design said the opposite. William Dembski (1998) and Richard Sternberg (2002) predicted widespread function for the so-called “junk.” After all, as a product of care and intention, the genome ought to be comparable in a way with products of human genius, with every detail there for a reason.

On that, ID has since been massively vindicated. Scientific theories are tested by the predictions they make. If those fail, it’s a bad sign for the theory. Mainstream science journals like Science are admitting the truth about the erstwhile “junk” — even as a few diehard Darwinists like Laurence Moran at the University of Toronto deny it.

And these predictions by the design side are not new. My young Earth creationist friend even sent me this today (today is Wednesday, I always write these posts the night before and schedule them for the next morning):

While a Creation/Fall model could account for the accumulation of some random, mutationally defective “extra copies,” evolutionists felt they had a strong point that 97% “junk” DNA pointed more to evolution than intelligent design. Creationists have long suspected that this “junk DNA” will turn out to have a function. In fact, junk DNA research is now a hot topic; not only are more and more functions being detected, but it is suspected that junk DNA is full of yet-to-be-discovered “intellectual riches.

That prediction is from 1994. My friend has a whole article about Junk DNA here, with all the predictions from each side.

He says “Carl Wieland founded CMI”. CMI is Creation Ministries International, which is supposed to be the best YEC web site.

Anyway, if you missed the other videos in the series, there is a playlist, but all the videos are out of order! If you want a quick and snarky introduction to intelligent design, this is it.