Mayor Vince Gray and the D.C. Office of Human Rights yesterday launched an ad campaign promoting respect for the city’s transgender and gender-non-conforming residents. The five ads, which will appear this fall, use images of members of the transgender and gender-non-conforming and convey the message that they are no different than any other D.C. resident.

At the launch of the ad campaign yesterday, Gray admitted that while the ads themselves would not be enough to stop discrimination and acts of violence, they would serve to raise awareness and highlight legal rights and protections that members of the community enjoy under the expansive D.C. Human Rights Act. “We know an ad campaign is not a cure all or a panacea, but it is a step in the right direction,” he said, according to the Washington Blade.

City officials say that the government-funded ad campaign is the first of its kind in the nation to focus on transgender and gender-non-conforming residents.

Crimes against members of the transgender and gender-non-conforming community have been on the rise in recent years. In 2011, 11 such crimes were reported by police, up from 10 the year prior and five in 2009. In the first six months of 2012, five bias-related crimes have been reported, a 150 percent increase over the same period in 2011.

In February, Deoni Jones, a transgender woman, was stabbed and killed at a bus stop near H Street NE. A month later, another transgender woman was assaulted and knocked unconscious in Northeast D.C.

The problems could be more systemic, too. In late February the Justice Department looked into allegations that MPD was violating the rights of transgender residents. That same month, a member of the D.C. Trans Coalition told a D.C. Council committee that MPD had “abdicated its responsibility to keep trans people in the District of Columbia safe.”

Last August, Officer Kenneth Furr was arrested while off-duty after he allegedly fired five shots at a car and injured three occupants, two of whom were transgender women. In December 2010, a transgender woman who was arrested for assaulting another off-duty patrolman, Raphael Radon, said that the altercation was instigated by Radon after he made several abusive comments.

“I chose to participate in this campaign and advocate on behalf of the transgender community in memory of LaShay McLean, my intern who was killed last year because she was a transgender woman,” said Iden Campbell McCollum, a transgender man who is featured in one of the ads, in a statement. “Our community still faces high levels of discrimination and violence, but things are improving, and the government’s willingness to launch a campaign for our community speaks to that improvement.”

The D.C. Trans Coalition also publishes a booklet outlining the rights that transgender and gender-non-conforming residents have.