Yet state or federal hate crime laws are rarely used to prosecute the slayings. Missouri is one of 17 states with hate crime laws that cover offenses targeting people on the basis of their gender identity. On Wednesday, PROMO and the Anti-Defamation League jointly urged prosecutors to examine the possibility that Steinfeld's murder was a hate crime. One of its transgender rights lawyers, Chase Strangio, said he no longer considered hate crime laws to be effective. "I worry that what hate crime laws do is narrow our focus on certain types of individual violence while absolving the entire system that generates the violence," he said.

Source: ABC News September 27, 2017 21:32 UTC