On June 21, the same weekend Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson announced he was declaring a “Transfemicide State of Emergency,” 36 people were shot in the city, six fatally. At the current homicide rate, Chicago is on pace to record 445 homicides this year. By contrast, only 14 transgender people were killed in Chicago between 2016 and 2024, averaging 1.6 per year, only marginally higher than the number of non-transgender homicide victims killed each day.

The transfemicide emergency was declared in response to a phenomenon that averages 0.003 deaths per day.

Johnson’s declaration, originally signed in December 2024 as Executive Order 2024-2, created a Transfemicide Working Group and directed the Chicago Commission on Human Relations and the Chicago Police Department to develop strategies to address violence against transgender individuals.

The city defines transfemicide as the “targeted killing of a transgender woman motivated by transphobic and misogynistic hatred.” The June 21 announcement expanded the original declaration into a community-driven framework and appointed Antonio King as Chicago’s first Director of LGBTQ+ Affairs, making Chicago the largest city in the country with an executive-level position dedicated to LGBTQ+ equity.

The announcement came two days after Juneteenth, the federal holiday observed annually on June 19 to commemorate June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed more than 250,000 black people that they were free. Apparently, in Chicago, the holiday is marked by widespread violence and disorder.

Over the extended Juneteenth holiday weekend, from June 19 through June 22, eight people were killed and nearly 40 others were wounded in 24 separate shooting incidents. Among the dead was Marcus Chatman, 14, who was shot multiple times Thursday night in Auburn Gresham, where he played for the Midwest Hawks youth football team.

The weekend’s largest incident was a mass shooting in Roseland on Friday night, when a red SUV drove past a Juneteenth gathering and two occupants opened fire, striking 14 people between the ages of 17 and 47. None of the weekend’s victims were transgender.

Through June 2026, Chicago had recorded 207 homicides, up 7% from the same period in 2025, with 861 people shot, a 13% increase year over year. In all of 2025, Chicago recorded 416 homicides, the city’s lowest annual total since 1965, while still averaging more than one killing per day. Summer 2026 is trending worse.

The transfemicide declaration rests on a narrow statistical foundation. In all of 2025, one transgender woman was killed: 31-year-old Davonta Curtis, who was beaten to death with a hammer by her boyfriend, who was charged with first-degree murder. Police treated the case as a domestic homicide with no established connection to the victim’s transgender identity.

Nationwide, 42% of the 32 transgender homicide victims in 2024 were killed by a romantic partner, friend, or family member, killings that should not qualify as transfemicide under the city’s definition. The city’s own Transfemicide Working Group report also includes suicides in its count, despite the term’s stated definition being limited to targeted killings.

The declaration drew a federal response. Harmeet Dhillon, DOJ Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, announced her office would investigate whether Chicago is giving preferential treatment to transgender residents, writing: “Reminder that ALL Chicagoans are entitled to the equal protection of the laws.” The Chicago announcement was consistent with a broader pattern of federal scrutiny of Illinois gender policies.

On April 30, 2026, the DOJ Civil Rights Division had already launched investigations into 36 Illinois school districts to determine whether they were teaching sexual orientation and gender ideology content in K-12 classrooms without parental notification, and whether they were limiting access to single-sex spaces and girls’ sports based on biological sex.

President Trump blasted Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker over the Juneteenth violence and offered federal assistance, stating on Truth Social that he could make Chicago “a safe City in ONE MONTH.”

The shootings were not the only disorder Johnson’s administration has allowed. Teen takeovers, large gatherings of hundreds or even thousands of young people organized through social media, have become a recurring crisis. Over Memorial Day weekend, five police officers were struck by a teen driver while dispersing a takeover on the Near West Side.

That same weekend, three people were shot and 53 were arrested in Hyde Park on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to aggravated battery of a peace officer and aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon. Johnson vetoed a proposed ordinance that would have given police the authority to impose rapid-response curfews during such events.

Chicago, which has not elected a Republican mayor since the 1930s, has consistently taken a soft-on-crime approach. In September 2023, Illinois became the first state to fully eliminate cash bail under the SAFE-T Act, with judges determining pretrial release based on risk assessments rather than a defendant’s ability to pay. Critics cited immediate consequences.

A suspect with 72 prior arrests, who was out on electronic monitoring, was caught on video setting a woman on fire aboard a CTA train. Republican lawmakers also documented cases of individuals charged with serious violent crimes being released from county jail the same day they were arrested and later reoffending while on pretrial release.

The lenient approach predates bail reform. Under former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who served until December 2024, felony charges were dropped against 29.9% of defendants, compared with 19.4% under her predecessor. The year before Foxx took office, 29% of retail theft cases were prosecuted as felonies.

Within a year, that figure fell to 10%. Foxx also raised the felony prosecution threshold for retail theft to more than $1,000, despite the state threshold being $300. At the height of her tenure, monthly felony filings fell to roughly 500, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 per month before she took office.

The consequences of decades of one-party governance, a transfemicide emergency declared amid a weekend of mass shootings, unprosecuted retail theft, violent offenders released without bail, and teen takeovers met with a veto of curfew legislation are visible on Chicago’s streets every day.

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