Transgender Woman Assaulted in Possible Hate Crime

On January 8, a 30-year-old transgender woman and a 32-year-old man were assaulted by two women inside Astoria's Neptune Diner in what the New York Police Department referred to as a "possible hate crime."

In a statement to DNAInfo New York, Deputy Inspector Kevin Maloney of the 114th precinct described the altercation, saying two unidentified women in their late 20s or early 30s began verbally harassing the transgender woman, making a series of derogatory statements and following that up by hitting the victims with a plate. Both victims received medical attention at Mount Sinai Queens Hospital.

The two women, along with a male companion, are wanted for questioning by the NYPD. The department's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the assault.

According to a report released in 2012 by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, transgender individuals are significantly more likely to become victims of assault than their cisgender counterparts. Elsewhere, the killer of Islan Nettles, a transgender woman brutally murdered in New York last August, remains at large.