A Social Cartography of Trans Homicides: Data, Epistemologies, and Contradictions

ABSTRACT For eighteen consecutive years, activists, media, international campaigns, and scholars have described Brazil as the country with the world's highest number of transgender murders. We scrutinize the scope and methodology of these claims, highlighting the risks of data universalization, epistemic erasure, and the neglect of less measurable forms of violence. We compare annual reports by ANTRA and Rede Trans Brasil, the main organizations documenting anti‐trans murders in Brazil. Findings show that they collect data from news reports, social media, and local activists, facing limitations such as underreporting and misgendering. Although their absolute counts diverge slightly, both identify similar patterns of racialized, classed, and youth‐targeted transfeminicide . The oft‐cited 35‐year life expectancy for Brazilian trans people reveals political utility but statistical fragility. While murder measurements produce narratives to denounce violence, they impose singular representations on trans lives. This calls for a critical trans ‐epistemology that challenges the treatment of data as universal truth.