Phoenix transgender teen Dakota Kern, 18, was invited to a pool party this past weekend. She shouldn't have gone.

It's something one doesn't see every day. Well, the hate is often visible, but labeling an attack of a transgender person as a hate crime just doesn't happen all that much. Even when a trans woman, usually a trans woman of color, is murdered, investigators have this way of looking for other reasons as to why it happened. Often there is a blame-the-victim mentality.

Last Friday a New York man beat two transgender women in Jackson Heights, Queens as they attempted to enter a McDonald's.

The news reports that we are in the grips of a hate crime wave not seen since the civil rights era.

The New York Times obtained an advanced copy of a study by researchers at Cal State San Berdoo on the prevalence of hate crimes in the United States.

While the most current hate crime statistics from the F.B.I. are not expected until November, new data from researchers at California State University, San Bernardino, found that hate crimes against American Muslims were up 78 percent over the course of 2015. Attacks on those perceived as Arab rose even more sharply.

Michael Volz, a 36-year-old transgender man, was leaving a fundraiser for Orlando victims held Wednesday evening at a nightclub when he was approached by a man of about 20 who said "Hey, Happy Pride" before grabbing the transman by the throat while yelling a transgender slur.

The transgender man was choked to unconsciousness and beaten. Then the suspect fled the scene.

I first wrote about Samantha Hulsey back in January, when she was attacked with a friend on a Muni bus by a man who stabbed her twice with a steak knife while calling Hulsey and her friend "faggots".

On November 15 a San Francisco couple, Dewayne Edward Kemp, 36, and Rebecca Louise Westover, 42, were arrested near Eighth and Mission for allegedly assaulting transgender resident Samantha Hulsey.

In court Friday afternoon, Kemp and Westover pleaded not guilty to the charges, contending that they were acting in self-defense when Westover threw a cup of hot coffee an Hulsey and her girlfriend, Daira Hopwood and Kemp punched Hulsey four times in the face while uttering transphobic comments.