Whereas there is a long history of violence targeting transgender women of color in America, and much of it goes unreported or is reported inaccurately; Whereas 2016 was the deadliest year on record for transgender people in the United States, with 21 murders of transgender women in 2016, almost all of whom were transgender women of color, and there had been 18 as of September 6, 2017, almost all of them, transgender women of color; Whereas transgender women of color experience discrimination in educational settings and are expelled from school at twice the rate of the nontransgender population; Whereas transgender women of color are more likely to experience violence, including in prisons and immigration detention facilities; Whereas discriminatory attitudes toward the transgender community foster high rates of violence, homelessness, and economic instability; Whereas transgender women of color who do not have access to safe education, employment, and housing due to a lack of availability, targeted support programs, training, or affordability are forced into unregulated economies that place them in vulnerable situations; Whereas African-American transgender women of color experience unemployment two to three times higher than nontransgender African-American people in the United States population according to a 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey ( USTS ) of over 25,000 transgender people across the United States; Whereas respondents to the USTS who were currently working in the underground economy were three times more likely than nontransgender people to have been expelled from school; Whereas transgender women of color are substantially more likely to report being homeless because of being transgender; Whereas transgender women of color, including American Indian (59 percent), African-American (51 percent), multiracial (51 percent), and Middle Eastern (49 percent), experienced especially high rates of homelessness