The year of living dangerously: Transgender women in the United States are being murdered at an alarming rate

For a few transgender Americans, this has been a year of glamour and fame. For many others, 2015 has been fraught with danger and mourning.

While Caitlyn Jenner made the cover of Vanity Fair and Laverne Cox prospered as a popular actress, other transgender women have become homicide victims at an alarming rate. By the count of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programmes, there have been 22 killings so far this year of transgender or gender-nonconforming people - including 19 black or Latina transgender women.

The toll compares with 12 last year and 13 in 2013, and is the highest since advocacy groups began such tallies a decade ago.

"Most Americans think it's been an amazing year for transgender rights," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Centre for Transgender Equality. "But for the transgender community, it's been one of the most traumatic years on record."

Kiesha Jenkins was beaten and shot dead by a cluster of assailants in Philadelphia. Tamara Dominguez was run over multiple times and left to die on a Kansas City street. Police said the most recent victim, Zella Ziona, was shot dead in Maryland last month by a boyfriend embarrassed she showed up in the presence of some of his other friends.

There's no question that anti-transgender hatred fuelled many of the killings, yet activists and social-service professionals say there are multiple factors that make transgender women of colour vulnerable.

"For many of these women, it's chronic unemployment or participation in survival sex work," said Louis Graham, a University of Massachusetts professor who studied the experiences of black transgender women.