Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Aggression and Violent Behavior

Violence against transgender people: A review of United States data

Rebecca L. Stotzer
University of Hawaii at Mnoa, United States

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 14 December 2007
Received in revised form 31 December 2008
Accepted 20 January 2009
Available online 24 January 2009
Keywords:
Violence
Gender identity
Sexual assault
Physical assault
Hate crimes

a b s t r a c t
Transgender people face many challenges in a society that is unforgiving of any system of gender that is not
binary. However, there are three primary sources of data in the United States for discerning the rates and
types of violence that transgender people face throughout their lives self-report surveys and needs
assessments, hot-line call and social service records, and police reports. Data from each of these sources are
discussed in length, as well as some of the methodological issues for these types of data sources. All three
sources indicate that violence against transgender people starts early in life, that transgender people are at
risk for multiple types and incidences of violence, and that this threat lasts throughout their lives. In addition,
transgender people seem to have particularly high risk for sexual violence. Future research considerations,
such as improving data collection efforts, are discussed.
2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Contents
1.
2.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Self-report surveys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.
Sexual violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.1.
Motivation for sexual violence . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.2.
Perpetrators of sexual violence . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.3.
Police and other authorities . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.
Physical violence and abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.1.
Motivation for physical violence . . . . . . . . .
2.2.2.
Perpetrators of physical violence . . . . . . . . .
2.2.3.
Violence in the home . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.4.
Feelings of safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.5.
Police and other authorities . . . . . . . . . . .
2.3.
Harassment, verbal abuse, and other non-physical violence.
2.3.1.
Perpetrators of harassment and verbal abuse . . .
3.
Hotline calls and social service reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) . . .
3.2.
Tracking transgender murders . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.
Police reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.
Social surveys and police reporting . . . . . . . . . . . .
5.
Methodological limitations of violence and transgender people . .
6.
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The author would like to thank the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law for
their contributions to this paper, as well as Jessica Xavier, Dr. Perry Silverchanz, and
Dr. Danielle McCartney for their invaluable insight.
University of Hawai i School of Social Work, Henke Hall 1800 East-West Drive,
Honolulu, HI 96819, United States.
E-mail address: rstotzer@hawaii.edu.
1359-1789/$ see front matter 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.avb.2009.01.006

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170
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178

1. Introduction
Transgender people face violence because of their gender
nonconformity, and the nature and extent of that violence has been
the focus of recent research. Documenting violence is becoming

R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

increasingly important as policymakers utilize these types of statistics to pass more effective and necessary policies at the local, state,
and federal levels to protect people based on their gender identity
and gender expression. This report summarizes the scant yet diverse research on violence against transgender people in the United
States.
Although denitions of the term transgender itself are contested,
transgender is coming to represent an umbrella term under which
resides anyone who bends the common societal constructions of
gender, including cross-dressers, transsexuals, genderqueer youth,
drag queens, and a host of other terms that people use to self identify
their gender. This term is gender neutral in the sense that it includes
both people born as males who express or identify their gender as
female (male-to-female transgender, or MTFs), and people born
female who express or identify their gender as male (female-to-male,
or FTMs). Numerous studies have demonstrated that transgender
people experience high levels of violence from strangers and known
others alike, and that they often face a lifetime of repeated
victimization. The number of gender non-conforming people in the
United States is unknown, making estimates of victimization risk
uncertain (Stotzer, 2007). In addition, assessing the level, extent, and
nature of violence against people with non-conforming gender
identities and presentations has been challenging for a variety of
social and methodological reasons.
One qualitative study paints a picture of what life is life for
transgender people. Wyss (2004) interviewed seven transgender high
school students and asked about their experiences at school. This
study discusses the full-contact hallways that seven gender nonconforming youth encounter in high school. Their descriptions of the
physical violence are particularly informative considering the details
that the youths describe. Many report that not just other students
harassed them, but that people they even considered friends would
either help or join with assailants during physical attacks. Two of the
students were set on re in school, one after shop class. There were
also constant threats of sexual assault, or coercive sex, or physical
assault, both verbal threats and notes left in lockers. The hallways
were also the place to be grabbed or fondled by anyone in the school.
Despite the growing anecdotal knowledge that violence is a signicant problem in the transgender community, data about this issue
are not readily available. There are currently three possible sources for
information about the violence and harassment that transgender
people experience:
I. Self-report surveys
Self-report surveys directly ask transgender people about their
experiences of victimization, and routinely nd a high
prevalence of violence. These studies rely on asking transgender people directly about their experiences of victimization,
and can include written surveys, face-to-face interviews, and
focus groups.
II. Hotline calls and social service reports
Advocacy groups, such as the National Coalition of Anti-Violence
Programs, publish reports of violence and harassment across the
country. These estimates of the incidence of violence against
transgender people come from tracking hot-line calls and
requests for social services. Other organizations track murders
through newspaper reports and word-of-mouth reports.
III. Police reports
Currently, only 10 states include gender identity or gender
expression in their hate crime laws. These reports come directly
from crimes reported to local and state police.
This report identies available information about violence against
transgender people and other gender non-conforming people.
Furthermore, this paper discusses the strengths and weakness of the
methods employed in self-report surveys, advocacy group reports, and

171

state reports. Finally, utilizing all three of these sources, the knowledge that is available about the scope and nature of victimization
in the transgender community is discussed as it relates to policy
implementation and social service provision.
2. Self-report surveys
Early efforts at understanding the needs of gender non-conforming
individuals came from public health interest in transsexual prostitutes (i.e.
Boles & Elifson, 1994; Elifson, Boles, Posey, Sweat, Darrow, & Elsea, 1993).
However, there was rarely emphasis on experiences of violence or
harassment due to the conation of gender-identity issues with sex work
and the emerging HIV/AIDS crisis. However, the rst substantial attempts
at discerning the problems with violence faced by those with nonconforming gender-identity was the First Natioanl Survey of Transgender
Violence conducted by GenderPAC in 1997 (and further analyzed in
Lombardi, Wilchins, Priessing, & Malouf, 2001). This study found high
levels of violence from harassment to physical and sexual assaults.
From that start, surveys targeting gender non-conforming people
conducted across the United States (and internationally) have occasionally included questions about violence and harassment, with the
most recent and most comprehensive survey of trans-people being
the Virginia Transgender Health Initiative Survey (VTHIS) (Xavier,
Honnold, & Bradford, 2007). Most large scale self-report surveying has
been done in either cities or states, and are needs assessments
conducted in part by Departments of Health. These surveys are often
based on convenience samples composed of people accessing social
services, or through social networks and word-of-mouth. More specically, the most common type of recruitment is through snowball
sampling of a convenience sample of transgender people utilizing
identied leaders in the transgender community to serve as recruiters,
interviewers, and/or survey administrators (Clements-Nolle, Marx, &
Katz, 2006; Garofalo, Deleon, Osmer, Doll, & Harper, 2006; Kenagy,
2005; McGowan, 1999; Reback, Simon, Bemis, & Gatson, 2001; Risser
et al., 2005; Sugano, Nemoto, & Operario, 2006; Xavier, 2000; Xavier,
Bobbin, Singer, Budd, 2005). These convenience samples usually are
focused around social service organizations (most often HIV/AIDS
clinics or organizations), and bars or other social gathering places for
transgender people. However, many studies also targeted specic
populations, such as transgender prostitutes doing street work
(Valera, Sawyer, & Schiraldi, 2000), or targeting locations, such as
sex workers who came in for clinic visits (Cohan et al., 2006). A few
others used mixed method designs that employed some mix of faceto-face recruitment, paper surveys and interviews, and/or the use of
the internet as a tool for recruiting and surveying (Dang, 2007; FORGE,
2005; Lombardi et al., 2001; Wyss, 2004; Xavier et al., 2007). Topics
related to violence commonly addressed three main categories:
1) sexual violence data, 2) physical violence data, and 3) harassment,
verbal abuse, and other non-physical violence.
2.1. Sexual violence
In my neighborhood, either they want to beat you up or they
want a free blow job. Interviewee (Bockting, Robinson, & Rosser,
1998)
One of the best documented types of violence against transgendered
people is sexual assault and rape. This is due in part because most studies
on transgender people are linked to Departments of Public Health and
focus on sexual behavior, such as condom use, unprotected sex, and anal
sex, in order to draw connections with HIV/AIDS status and transmission. As a consequence, this means that there are more reports and
greater levels of detail about sexual assault and rape than any of the
other types of violence experiences by transgendered people.
What becomes clear from surveys of trans-people is that there is
a high prevalence of sexual assault and rape starting at a young

172

R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

age. While all surveys have found evidence that sexual violence is
shockingly common, the proportion of transgender people reporting
violence varies from survey to survey. As discussed later, these
variations in rates probably result from differences in how researchers
conducted their surveys, and we cannot draw rm conclusions on the
actual likelihood that a transgender person will experience sexual
violence. However, the most common nding across surveys and needs
assessments is that about 50% of transgendered persons report
unwanted sexual activity. Clements-Nolle et al. (2006) surveyed 515
MTFs and FTMs and found that 59% reported a history of forced sex or
rape, Garofalo et al. (2006) also found her/his survey of 51 MTF youths
that 52% reported unwanted sexual intercourse, and Kenagy (2005b)
found that 54% of participants reported that they had been forced to
have sex. The report with the highest percentage of people who
reported being either directly involved or secondary victims (i.e.,
witnesses) of sexual violence was the FORGE (2005) report, which had
66% of their 264 respondents in the mid-west state that they had been
the victims or witnesses of sexual violence, and 23% had been the
victims or witnesses of ve or more incidences of sexual violence
(Tables 1 and 2).
Kenagy (2005a) also found a signicant difference between MTFs
and FTMs, with 69% of MTFs reported having been the victims of
forced sex, where only 30% of FTMs reported a history of forced sex.
However, only one other study directly tested this difference.
Contrary to the Kenagy (2005b) study, forced sexual activity was a
larger problem for FTMs in the Xavier et al. (2007) sample: 35% of
FTMs responded they had been sexually assaulted compared to 23% of
MTFs.
Other studies sometimes nd lower rates of sexual violence between 10% and 15% (i.e., Xavier, 2003, Witten, 2003, and Lombardi
et al., 2001). The report with the highest percentage of people who
reported sexual violence is the FORGE report (2005). Results showed
that 66% of the 264 mid-western respondents had been the victims or
witnesses of sexual violence, and 23% had been the victims or
witnesses of ve or more incidences of sexual violence.
Not only is sexual violence occurring with a high level of frequency,
but this violence starts at an early age. One study found that rst rapes
often occurred in the early teens, with a median of 14 years old for
FTMs and 15 years old for MTFs (Xavier et al., 2007). The FORGE
(2005) report found that young gender-nonconforming persons were
particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, with the majority of
incidents occurring before the age of 12, and that number steadily
declining with age. This claim about younger transgender people
being more at risk was also found in Wyss' (2004) study on high
school-aged transgendered youth. Wyss, through a mix of surveying

and interviewing, found that 86% of respondents had experienced

some type of sexual violence, often perpetrated by other students,
because of their gender identity.
2.1.1. Motivation for sexual violence
These studies also provide insights into the motivation for sexual
assaults, generating evidence that perpetrators are motivated by
hatred or negative attitudes toward transgender people. It is important
to keep in mind that in these questionnaires motivation of the
perpetrator is determined by the victim and their perception of their
victimization rather than any objective or legal determination of
motivation. Although this is a common strategy for determining motivation in crime surveys, this method clearly only addresses perceptions of motivation. In Xavier et al. (2005), 13% of the 248 MTF and FTM
participants reported being victims of sexual assault or rape, and that
43% of those victims believed that their victimization was because of
the perpetrators' homophobia, while another 35% of victims reported
that it was the perpetrators' transphobia that led to the assault.
Witten's (2003) participants were asked if they believed they had ever
been the victims of a hate crime: 23% were classied by the participant
as sexual harassment, 15% as sexual abuse or attempted sexual abuse,
and 6% had been raped because of their gender identity. In the Xavier
et al. (2007) study of transgender Virginians, over half (57%) of the
participants reported they felt the reason for one or more of the
incidents of forced sex was due to their transgender status, gender
identity, or gender expression, with 71% of MTFs attributing that
motive to one or more of the incidents, compared to 40% of FTMs.
2.1.2. Perpetrators of sexual violence
Perhaps one of the most disappointing ndings from self-report
surveys are the ndings that the largest percent of perpetrators of
sexual violence are people who are known to the victim, including
partners and family members. In a study of primary and casual sex
partners, Risser et al. (2005) found that 16% of the 67 participating
MTFs reported being forced to have sex by a casual sex partner, and 25%
had been forced to have sex by their primary partner. Additional
evidence for this trend comes from Xavier et al. (2007), who found that
among those who had reported incidents of forced sex, 35% involved a
person who lived in the participant's household at the time of the
assault. In addition, in a survey of 26 MTF prostitutes in Washington D.
C., Valera et al. (2000) found that 35% reported being raped since they
entered prostitution. The most common perpetrator of these rapes were
customers (60%), someone else (40%), and their pimp (20%).
Additional details about the perpetrators of these crimes comes from
Xavier et al. (2007), who found that acquaintances were the most

Table 1
Self-report survey reports of the prevalence of violence against transgender people motivated by their gender identity or gender expression (as reported by victims).

Location
Sample
MTF
FTM
Other/not specied
Sexual assault/rape
Sexual harassment
Violence or crime
Physical assault/beaten
Robbed
Objects thrown at you
Assaulted w/a weapon
Followed/stalked
Harassment
Verbal abuse
a
b
c

McGowan
(1999)

Reback et al.
(2001)

Lombardi et al.
(2001)

Witten
(2003)

Wyss
(2004)

FORGE
(2005)

Xavier et al. (2005)

Clements-Nolle
et al. (2006)

Xavier et al.
(2007)

Dang
(2007)

New York

Los Angeles

USA

US and abroad

Not spec.

Mid-west

D.C.

San Francisco

Virginia

188
60

392
123

112
34

24
86%

77
121
16
28%

USA
API
14
6
52

83
11

84
81
244
13%

33%
47%

27%
20%
14%
17%
10%
23%
56%

174
15%
23%

10%

15%

15%

39%
29%

86%

36%

28%

49%

41%
48%

80%

Reects the fraction of the entire population.

Witten (2003) reported muggings specically, but this statistic was counted into the robbery category.
Dang (2007) included discrimination or harassment together.

69%

83%

^^80%/64%
59%
54%
53%

Witten (2003) reported muggings specically, but this was collapsed into the robbery category.

26%
14%
18%
4%
2%
2%
1%

29%

88%
35%
88%

17%
14%

19%

60%
45%
67%
26%
8%
65%

174

^Risser et al. (2005) separately reported casual sex partner sexual violence, and primary partner sexual violence (casual partner/primary partner).
McGowan asked Have you ever been a victim of domestic violence or rape?, and we are unable to determine what percent is rape vs. other forms of domestic violence.
++Cohan et al. (2006) reported specically on sex work related violence, without specifying what type of violence.
^^Sugano et al. (2005) separated prevalence by age, during childhood/during adulthood.

52%
51%
51%

16
43%
16%

180
60
4
83
11

66.0%

77
121
78
33
113
69
49
32

67

^16/25%

188
60

43%

++53.2%

San Francisco
Sex workers
D.C.
Houston
Mid-west
Chicago
Philadelphia
Philadelphia
US and abroad
D.C.

D.C.
Sex workers
26
New York

Location
Sample
MTF
FTM
Intersex
Other/not specied
Violence/crime
Physical assault
Emotional abuse
Neglect
Exploitation
Assaulted w/a weapon
Sexual assault/rape
Threatened
Harassment
Robbed
Intimidation
Vandalism
Blackmail
Abduction
Bombing

173

common perpetrators of sexual violence (48%), followed by complete

strangers (26%), father or stepfather (16%), a former spouse or partner
(14%), current spouse or partner (12%), and a brother or sister (12%).
According to the FORGE (2005) report, amongst those who had identied
the genders of the perpetrators of sexual assaults, 90% of victims said they
had at some time been assaulted by a male perpetrator, 30% of victims had
been assaulted by a female perpetrator, and 12% had been assaulted by a
transgender perpetrator (totals do not add up to 100% because a single
victim could have been a victim in one assault by a male perpetrator and in
another assault by a female, etc.). In addition, they found that the most
common relationship to the victim that the perpetrator had was as a
family member (39%), an acquaintance (35%), an intimate partner (29%), a
stranger (25%), a date (20%), or an individual in a helping profession such
as police or healthcare/social service providers (11%).

27%

40%
^^37%/20%

112
34

Chicago
Youth
51

392
123

San Francisco
Racial Minorities
332
San Francisco

VA

Sugano
et al. (2006)
Cohan
et al. (2006)
Xavier et al.
(2005)
Risser
et al. (2005)
FORGE
(2005)
Kenagy and
Bostwick (2005)
Kenagy
(2005b)
Kenagy
(2005a)
Witten
(2003)
Xavier
(2000)
Valera et al.
(2000)
McGowan
(1999)

Table 2
Needs assessments and academic survey reports of the prevalence of general violence against transgender people (no particular motivation associated with victimization).

Garofalo
et al. (2006)

ClementsNolle et al. (2006)

Xavier et al.
(2007)

R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

2.1.3. Police and other authorities

Within the transgender community it is common knowledge that
interacting with authorities invites a certain level of possible victimization, or revictimization for transgendered people. Only two studies directly ask about reporting sexual assault to the police. The Xavier
et al. (2007) found that 83% of victims of sexual assaults did not report
any of the incidences to the police. The FORGE (2005) report found a
similar statistic that only 9% of victims reported their sexual assaults
to police, and that 47.5% did not tell ANYONE about their sexual assault.
However, an interesting nding that might elucidate the lack of
reporting to authorities was the fact that victims reported that 4.9% of
incidences of sexual violence were perpetrated by police, and in 5.9% of
cases the perpetrators was a social service or health care provider.
In summary, studies conducted since 1999 have shown that transgender people are the victims of a great deal of sexual violence,
specically sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, rape, and
attempted rape. In addition, this violence is often being perpetrated
specically because of their gender identity or expression. Perhaps
most painful, in only about a third of cases the perpetrator is a complete stranger, suggesting that a large volume of the sexual victimization of transgender people is at the hands of people they know,
and that this victimization begins at an early age.
2.2. Physical violence and abuse
I had these three guys that didn't like me and I'm not totally sure
why they didn't. But I think a lot of it had to do with my gender
expression and my sexuality and just basically who I was. [T]hey
beat my ass on my fteenth birthday [with a leather belt.T]he
guy that I was with [] just sat back and watched while they did
this to me Interviewee (Wyss, 2004, p. 716)
In addition to high rates of sexual violence victimization, transgender people also suffer from a high prevalence of physical violence.
The study with the highest level of detail about physical assault
specically is the study by Xavier et al. (2007). Among trans-Virginians, 40% reported experiencing physical assaults (since age 13),
and the mean age of the rst physical assault was at 16 years old. Of
those who had reported being victimized, 18% reported one incident,
23% reported two incidents, 30% reported three to ve incidents, 17%
reported six to 19 incidents, and 12% reported 20 or more incidents of
physical violence. This demonstrates that although there is some
evidence for the lifetime probability of being victimized is high for
transgender people, there is also a heightened risk of being multiply
victimized. Of those who reported that they were victims of physical
assault, 69% felt that for at least one or more of those incidences, the
primary reason for victimization was their gender identity.
Physical violence appears particularly problematic for transgender
sex workers. Valera et al. (2000) found that among MTF sex workers in
Washington D.C., 65% had been physically assaulted, and that the most
common perpetrator was a customer (71%). Weinberg, Shaver, and

174

R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

Williams (1999) found that among sex workers in the San Francisco
Tenderloin, in the last 12 months the mean number of rapes by a client
was 0.013 per person, the mean number of times beaten by a client was
0.23, and the mean number of times robbed by a client was 0.52. Cohan
et al. (2006) found that among 126 sex workers in San Francisco, 53%
had experienced sex work related violence, which was higher and
signicantly different from the percent of male or female prostitutes
who reported violence. Most often, the perpetrator was a customer
(43%), though they had experienced violence at the hands of the police
(17.5%), and their employer/manager/pimp (9%). In a qualitative study
by Nemoto, Operario, Keatley and Villegas (2004), MTF sex workers
identied their increased danger of discovery from potential clients
who did not understand their transgender status. One participant
summarized the constant danger by aptly stating No one's going to kill
a gay man if he nds a dick between his legs. No one's gonna kill a gay
woman if he nds a pussy. But they will denitely put a knife through a
tranny's throat if they see breasts and dick (p. 729).
2.2.1. Motivation for physical violence
Evidence about hate or bias motivation can also be found in other
studies besides the Transgender Virginians study. Just as with sexual
violence, perpetrators' motivation for physical violence is most often
based on the perceptions of victims, or their interpretation of the
reasons behind the crime, or even their labeling of the crime as a hate
crime. When asked about experiences of anti-transgender violence or
hate crime, 33% of participants in McGowan's (1999) study of 94
transgendered people in New York reported being victims. Xavier
(2003) (Xavier et al., 2005) reported that 43% of respondents had been
the victims of violence and/or crime, and of those who were victimized, 75% said that they believed at least one of their experiences of
violence or crime was related to their gender identity. Clements-Nolle et
al. (2006), asked the general question of whether or not participants
had experienced physical gender victimization, and of the 515 participants, 36% reported that they had been victims. Reback et al. (2001)
in surveying transgendered people in Los Angeles County found that
47% of the transgender participants reported being victims of physical
abuse or were beaten because of their gender identity.
2.2.2. Perpetrators of physical violence
Reback et al. (2001) asked a follow-up question about perpetrators,
and found that incidents involved strangers (37%), police (14%), parents
(9%), siblings (4%), neighbors (4%), other relatives (3%), and even friends
(3%). Witten (2003) also asked about crimes motivated by genderidentity motivated hatred, and found that among other crimes, such as
sexual assaults and harassment, participants also reported being the
victims of muggings based on hate (29%) and being beaten based on
hate (39%).
This breakdown of perpetrators was similar to those found in
Xavier et al. (2007), again suggesting that known others are the
primary perpetrators of physical violence against transgender people.
They also reported data on perpetrators, nding that 31% of physical
assault perpetrators were living with the victim at the time of the
assault. Again, the complete strangers were the most common perpetrators (47%), followed by acquaintances (27%), other persons
(who did not fall into the set categories (27%), fathers or stepfathers
(16%), mothers or stepmothers (9%), current spouse/partner, brother/
sister, or a former spouse or partner (8%). This suggests that similar to
sexual violence, perpetrators of physical violence are often known to
the victims.
Kuehnle and Sullivan (2003) also found that 30% of perpetrators
were landlord/neighbor/tenants, 20% of the time the perpetrator was
a stranger, 20% of perpetrators were pick-ups, and 10% of the time
the crimes were committed by an acquaintance/friend, law enforcement/security personnel, or service providers respectively. In addition, Kuehnle and Sullivan (2003) is one of the few studies that asked
about the location of physical violence, and compared anti-gay

violence against male, female, and transgender victims. Of the 10

transgender victims who reported violence to a social service agency,
50% reported that their victimization occurred in a private residence,
20% of crimes occurred on public transportation, 20% occurred in
public accommodations, and 10% occurred in the street or in a public
area.
Similar to sexual violence, physical violence is occurring at high
rates, happens often, and takes a variety of forms from physical assault
to attempted bombings and abductions. In addition, transgender
people have high rates of multiple victimization of physical violence,
and the perpetrators are often people known to the victim.
2.2.3. Violence in the home
Two studies conducted by Kenagy have asked the question: Have
you ever experienced violence in your home? This question is broad
enough to include incidences of domestic violence as well as attacks
from strangers or family without being able to differentiation between
them.1 Although it is unclear what type of violence is occurring in
the home in these surveys, it is still an important question when so
much violence pervades the lives of transgender people. Kenagy and
Bostwick (2005) found that 66% of respondents reported experiencing
violence in their home, while Kenagy (2005b) found that 56.3% of
participants reported experiencing violence in the home, with a
statistically signicant difference between MTFs (67.3%) and FTMs
(38.7%) (p b .05). Similarly, both studies asked about physical abuse
which is difcult to determine whether it meant abuse in a domestic
situation, or physical abuse in a wider lens of physical assault. However, Kenagy and Bostwick (2005) found that 60% of victims reported
being physically abused at some pointing their lives, and Kenagy
(2005b) reported that 51.3% of participants had reported being physically abused, with a signicant difference between MTFs (65.3%) and
FTMs (29.0%) (p b .01). Although the question is too vague to
determine situations of domestic violence vs. other types of crimes
in the home, these responses suggest that transgender people are not
safe even in their own homes.
2.2.4. Feelings of safety
One unique study asked transgender people about their thoughts
and beliefs about their own personal safety and life expectancy. Kenagy
and Bostwick (2005) found that 56% of MTFs and FTMs reported that
being transgendered made them feel unsafe in public, and 43% reported
that being transgendered made them feel uncomfortable in public as
well. In addition, there were statistically signicant differences between
FTMs and MTFs. FTMs (85%) were signicantly more likely to say they
felt unsafe (p b .0001) than MTFs (43%) and uncomfortable
(FTMs= 73%, MTFs = 30%, p b .0001). Perhaps the most tragic results
of this study were in the answers to questions about life expectancy.
40% of all respondents said they expected that their lifespan will be
shorter than normal (reasons given were queer-bashing, being killed by
police, the effects of hormones, and HIV status).
2.2.5. Police and other authorities
A story similar to that of report sexual assault to the police emerges
with physical assault and violence. The VTHIS found that 70% of
victims of physical violence did not report any of their assaults to the
police. When examining just the most recent incident (which happened an average of 6.6 years prior for FTMs and 11 years prior for
MTFs), only 26% reported their assaults to police. Witten (2003) found
that of the 89 respondents who had experienced violence, only 22%
had made reports to the authorities, and another 4% reported that they
sometimes had reported their victimization to police. However, of

1
For further information specically about domestic violence among transgender
^
people, some national statistics by the NCAVP are available. However, intimate partner
violence is beyond the scope of this paper.

R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

those who had reported, 65% were dissatised with their experiences
with authorities. Witten also found that 77% had at least told someone
about their victimization, even if they did not tell authorities. But of
those who had not reported to authorities, 28% said they were afraid of
reprisal from the perpetrator, 11% feared abuse by the medical/legal
system, 29% felt it would not make a difference if they reported or not,
and 8% wanted to protect the perpetrator. Lombardi et al. (2001)
found that a 7.7% of respondents also had suffered unjustied arrests,
adding another reason there appears to be poor relationships with
police and other authorities. As previously stated, Reback et al. (2001)
also found that 37% of the perpetrators of verbal abuse were police.
2.3. Harassment, verbal abuse, and other non-physical violence
At one point we were getting followed around by men that were
talking shit. It's like being a dog and making circles, looking to see
who's following you Interviewee (Felsenthal, 2005, p. 213)
In addition to sexual and physical violence, there is evidence of
high rates of more subtle, yet pervasive violence. Xavier (2000)
reported that 26% of respondents reported experiencing street
harassment, but Lombardi et al.'s (2001) participants reported rates
over twice that, at 56%. However, neither of these studies directly
asked whether or not participants believed that their victimization
was specic to their gender non-conformity. However, Witten (2003)
reported that 48% of respondents felt that they had experienced
harassment due to their transgender status at some point in their
lives. Clements-Nolle et al. (2006) specically asked whether or not
their participants had experienced verbal gender victimization, and
63% of their respondents answered that they had experienced verbal
gender victimization. Dang (2007) found that 69% of transgender
Asian Pacic Islanders had reported discrimination based on their
gender identity.
There are few reports of specic kinds of violence outside of sexual
assault, physical assault, or verbal assaults. However, Witten (2003)
found that 67% of those participating in the Transscience Longitudinal
Aging Research Study reported having experienced emotional abuse
violence, 26% had experienced some type of neglect, and 8% had
experienced exploitation. In addition, when asked specically about
crimes based on their gender identity, 23% reported that they had
been victims of sexual harassment, and 41% had been followed or
stalked. Xavier (2000) also reported that 18% of participants had
experienced intimidation in some form, in addition to vandalism (4%),
and blackmail or extortion (2%). Finally, Lombardi et al. (2001) reported that 23% of participants had been followed or stalked.
2.3.1. Perpetrators of harassment and verbal abuse
Possibly due to the pervasive nature of harassment and other
forms of violence, only one study inquired specically about the
perpetrators of verbal abuse and harassment. When asked in general
about verbal abuse, 80% of participants in Reback et al. (2001)
reported being victims of verbal abuse because of their gender
identity or presentation. However, unlike physical or sexual violence,
most respondents reported that a stranger was the perpetrator (71%),
but 37% were abused by police, 22% were abused by parents, 22%
experienced abuse from neighbors, 17% from siblings, and 16% from
friends. Another 14% were verbally abused by relatives outside the
immediate family.
3. Hotline calls and social service reports
Throughout the United States there is a network of anti-violence
programs under a variety of guises and names that serve their
communities in a variety of ways, but emphasize a focus on preventing
and punishing violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) people. Although these organizations are often located in

175

major metropolises (e.g., Community United Against Violence [CUAV]

in San Francisco, Center on Halsted/Horizons Anti-Violence Project in
Chicago, Triangle Foundation in Detroit, or the New York City Gay and
Lesbian Anti-Violence Program), the individual organizations can
receive calls or information from a wide geographic area. For example,
in their 2005 report, CUAV in San Francisco reported incidents from 15
counties in California besides San Francisco County (2006). In addition
to any local publications or reports that each organization authors
yearly, many of these organizations report their data to the National
Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects (NCAVP). The NCAVP has been
generating a yearly report about hate motivated incidences since at
least 1997. Even since the late 1990s this organization has had the
foresight to include gender identity in its data collection efforts. Thus,
it is one of the few nationally representative samples, even if the data
are heavily skewed toward the 1020 city and state organizations that
have reported to NCAVP in the last ten years.
This is not to say that NVACP is the only group collecting data. For
example, It's Time, Illinois! Political Action for the Gender Variant
Community routinely writes reports for Illinois, gathering information
from the Chicago Commission on Human Relations a well as reports
made directly to their agency. The totals counted by this organization
are often different from those reported by the NCAVP. For example, It's
Time Illinois! (2001) reported only one hate crime in all of Illinois in
1999, but the NVACP reported four in Chicago alone.
The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs has found among
20 regions in the United States since 1997 that there were 2133 hate
crimes against transgender people. This is an average of 213 hate
crimes per year. In addition, the Remembering Our Dead Program
has tracked 353 murders of transgender people worldwide since the
1970s.
3.1. National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP)
As can be seen in Table 3, the average number of crimes over the
last decade from just these 20 NCAVP chapters alone suggests that
there are an average 213 hate crimes with anti-transgender motivation reported to Anti-Violence programs per year in the United States.
However, although the NCAVP report has information about perpetrators, locations, extent of injuries, demographic information about
victims, types of crime, and a host of other variables, none of this
information is separated by type of crime or type of victim. Thus all
descriptive information about the crimes against transgender people
are combined with information about crimes against lesbians, gay
men, and bisexuals. So other than estimating incidence, the NCAVP
offers little other data about hate crimes targeting transgender people.
3.2. Tracking transgender murders
People have tried to kill me since I was a child Interviewee
(Witten & Eyler, 1999, p. 461)
In addition to tracking through hotline calls and service requests,
other organizations have begun collecting information about the
murder of transgender people. Organizations such as the Southern
Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report collect information based on
news accounts, police reports and other sources. Their report claimed
that there were 27 murders of transgender people in 2002 and the
rst nine months of 2003 alone (Moser, 2007). In addition, this report
suggests that at the time it was written, of those 27 cases, arrests had
been made for only seven cases.
Another source of information about murders of transgender people is a report titled 50 Under 30 from the Gender Public Advocacy
Coalition (GPAC). The report related stories of 51 transgender and
gender non-conforming individuals under the age of 30 who were
murdered in the United States between 1995 and 2005. In collecting

176

R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

Table 3
NCAVP annual national reports of hate crimes with transgender bias motivation.
NCAVP chapter
Central Coast
Chicago
Cleveland
Colorado
Columbus
Connecticut
El Paso
Houston
Kansas City
Los Angeles
Massachusetts
Michigan/Detroit
Minnesota
New York
Orlando
Pennsylvania
Providence
San Francisco
St. Louis
Vermont
Average per year

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

0
4
3
5
6

3
1
5
6

1
0
12
11
6

1
2
35
21
0

2
1
16
26

2
0
5
32

3
0
24
36

11

1
0
6

0
0
3
4
15

1
3

11
3

10

17
14
2
0
0
0

24
13
3
0
5
0

27
2
13
1
52

23
12
6
10
58

15
7
7
4
68

34
7
7
4
61

15
3
5
8
73

0
4
86
5
5
3
75

2
5
53
0
9
5
74

0
8
12
81

11

0
0
0

1
32
0

0
56
0

0
70

0
66

96

85

84

50

64

44

114

173

195

199

281

244

9
321

1
265

8
297

60
44

1
1

Average per city

0.0
3.0
1.2
16.6
20.3
3.0
6.0
2.8
3.3
32.7
6.3
6.5
4.7
54.7
0.0
6.4
0.2
60.3
0.0
6.0
213.3

Blank cells are when there was no information available about a particular location in a given year.
Sources: National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007).

information about these murder victims, they also attempted to

gather some basic demographic information as well. They found that
most victims were people of color (91%), most victims were poor and
lived in major cities, most were biologically male but had some variant
of a feminine presentation (92%), few murders received media coverage, all the assailants were male and used extreme levels of violence,
and most of the murders were not investigated as hate crimes (71%),
and most assailants go free. Only 46% had been solved, compared to
69% of other murders (Wilchins & Taylor, 2006). In addition, as of
2006, the Remembering Our Dead project, sponsored by Gender
Education and Advocacy and authored by Gwendolyn Ann Smith has
reported 353 transgender people murdered across the globe since the
1970s.
4. Police reports
The federal government currently does not include gender identity
in legislation covering hate crimes neither in sentence-enhancements nor in mandated tracking of hate crimes in the Uniform Crime
Reports. Furthermore, although police agencies record victim data
such as race, gender, and location, in the Uniform Crime Reports for
crimes not motivated by hate, these reports also do not include
information about gender identity. Hence, the Uniform Crime Reports
published by the FBI offers no information about violence against
members of the transgender community.
However, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland,
New Mexico, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Vermont include
gender identity in their hate crime laws that cover a variety of criminal
acts, though none specify statistical tracking (Human Relations Commission, 2005). When surveying reports from states that include
gender identity in their denitions of hate crime, and that publish
reports about their data collection, these states provide very little
information on hate crimes based on gender identity. Of the 10 states
that cover gender identity in their hate crime laws, none reports any
gender-identity based hate crimes. At this point, it is unclear whether
or not gender identity based hate crimes are being reported to police.
Then, if they are being reported, it is possible that these reports are
being subsumed in either the sexual orientation or gender based hate
crime sections of these yearly summaries.
Data from the police can also occur in unexpected places. Among
the other 40 states, one can nd sporadic inclusion of gender identity
based hate crimes, even among those who do not include gender

identity in their hate crime laws. For example, in 2001 Connecticut

reported a hate crime against a transsexual (listing it under sexual
orientation based hate crimes), and New York in 2002 reported one
hate crime based on gender identity expression.
Police reports are one of the most commonly used for estimates of
violence. However, in the case of violence against transgender people,
reports suffer from a variety of problems that make estimating the
total incidence of violence challenging.
4.1. Social surveys and police reporting
I got raped at 18 because they wanted to set me straight. I went to
the police and the police said to me, he who lays with dogs should
expect to get eas, that's what I got. So from that moment on I
knew the police were never gonna help me. Interviewee (Moran
& Sharpe, 2002 p. 279)
Evidence of reporting assaults to the police coincides with theoretical pieces that suggest that transgender people are hesitant to
report to authorities (Moran & Sharpe, 2002; Moran & Sharpe, 2004).
As previously discussed in both the sexual violence and physical
violence sections, transgender victims are unlikely to report to police.
Based on this limited evidence, it appears that reporting physical
violence to the police is distressingly low. This troubling rate could
exist for many reasons, however, two research projects might offer an
insight into why reporting rates are so low. Lombardi et al. (2001)
found that a 7.7% of respondents also had suffered unjustied arrests,
and as previously stated, Reback et al. (2001) also found that 37% of
the perpetrators of verbal abuse were police, and 14% of perpetrators
of physical assaults were police personnel. Thus, one could infer that
authorities such law enforcement may have a low level of trust with
transgender victims of violence.
5. Methodological limitations of violence and transgender people
Although these three sources offer a wide variety of information
about the violence faced by transgender people, it is important to
consider the limitations in each source. Each of these data gathering
strategies has numerous methodological issues that are too numerous
to discuss reasonably within the scope of this paper. However, there
are signicant issues shared by all three forms of measurement, and

R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

that are unique to each, that are critical for understanding how these
different sources inform us about violence against transgender people.
Foremost among these methodological issues are issues of
sampling. Police reports have sampling issues directly related to
biases in reporting. Vulnerable populations have notoriously low faith
in the police, and often have low crime reporting rates (e.g., Harlow,
2005). Relying on social service records or hotline calls also suffers
from sampling issues because of inequality of access and willingness
to report. Although one could assume that those people who have
access to these types of services dealing with experiences of violence
that are trans-sensitive will decrease the reporting bias, there are still
those who are unwilling to access them for a variety of other reasons.
Finally, self-report surveys often use samples that are easiest to access
and the most visible, such as transgender people accessing drug
rehabilitation centers, HIV/AIDS services, or who are engaged in sex
work. This clearly does not reect a representative sample of the wide
variety of transgender people in the United States and around the
world.
In addition to sampling bias, there is another methodological issue
shared by all three sources of data. Transgender people suffer a similar
problem with categorization that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people do
namely, there is confusion about what denes a transgender person.
This confusion is not just among the general population, but even the
portions of the population expected to be serving transgender people.
For example, when interviewing prosecutors about gender-based hate
crimes, McPhail and DiNitto (2005) found that interviewers had to
explain the differences between hate crimes based on gender and sexual
orientation to many prosecutors.
There are indications that prosecutors are not alone in being
unable to effectively do their jobs in regard to transgender people, and
government attempts to consolidate a system of measurement to help
clarify and standardize this process have failed. After being dropped
from initial hate crime laws and early workplace anti-discrimination
laws in the 1990s, in 2007 both the House and Senate passed versions
of a hate crime law, called the Matthew Shepard Act, that would have
mandated the FBI to count transgender hate crimes in the United
States as they counted those based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. The bill would have also provided
federal resources to jurisdictions that needed help investigating and
prosecuting any hate crimes that they felt they were unprepared for,
including those based on gender identity. However, because this bill
was attached to Defense spending in the Senate version, later attempts to reconcile the language of the House and Senate versions
proved unsuccessful, and this bill has effectively died. This means that
currently there is no federal system for collecting statistics measuring
the violence against transgender people, or laws that clarify the
relationship between gender identity and violence. Thus, discrepancies in how transgender people are categorized, how data are tracked
and stored, and how it is presented will continue.
Besides sampling issues shared by all three sources, there is also a
serious methodological issue in how questions are framed or are being
asked or included in data. Police data only include those crimes where
a police ofcer had the foresight to ask about or recognize someone's
non-standard gender identity, then report it in ofcial documentation,
and to investigate how gender identity might have contributed to a
crime. The NCAVP chapters generally use a standard intake form
emergency calls and requests for social services, which increases the
standardization of their results, but they only report a single number
the total number of victims without actually reporting or digging
deeper into other information in the victim reports. Although selfreport surveys tend to have the highest level of data, often due to the
fact that their main focus is not violence or victimization, the information is highly simplistic, and questions are often added as an
afterthought with little true planning. For example, the most common
questions of have you ever been raped or have you ever been the
victim of violence with only yes or no answers do not offer a lot of

177

insight into violence other than a raw number of people who have
been victims of some kind of violence. The reasons that a metaanalysis is not possible from current self-report surveys are because of
the wide variety of questions and their generally poor construction,
making comparisons across self-report studies nearly impossible.
All three sources also share the problem of offering little in the way
of explanation for how or why transgender people are victimized.
Although there are many theoretical suggestions (e.g., Felsenthal,
2005) for why transgender people are targeted for high levels of
violence and discrimination, little to no data exist or are being reported that offers insight into the reasons. Stotzer (2008) re-analyzed
data from ve years worth of reports of hate crimes against transgender people made to the Los Angeles County Commission on
Human Relations, and found suggestions in the crime details that the
reasons for hate crimes against transgender people are far more
complex than just possessing non-normative gender-identities. There
was evidence of intersections of gender identity, race, class, and
education as causes for the crimes of violence against transgender
people. However, the self-report surveys to date have asked few
questions about violence, and even fewer about crime details that
could illuminate causes. Organizations that report their data about
violence against transgender people, such as the NCAVP, often have
rich data from their intake surveys, but report on just the bare
essential descriptive statistics with little statistical complexity. Finally,
large-scale police reports often have nothing more than a raw number
of crimes reported. Thus, this methodological issue becomes a large
barrier to implement effective laws or policies when so little is known
about the violence being perpetrated against transgender people.
Although there are more methodological issues that could be
discussed at length in regard to measuring violence against transgender
people from all three sources, what is clear is that better methods need
to be employed to get more accurate data about transgender people.
Right now inconsistent methods including non-representative
sampling, inconsistent survey questions, confusion about the category
of transgender, and more are only allowing hints of the scope of the
problem of violence against transgender people. Improvement in
methodology would move the eld closer to an accurate approximation
of the violence transgender people encounter throughout their lives. As
this eld moves forward, more research can focus on the strengths of
transgender people that have allowed the transgender movement to
grow throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Identifying the nature and extent
of the violence is on the rst step in understanding the effect that
violence has in the lives of transgender people.
6. Conclusion
When combining all three forms of violence reporting it becomes
clear that among transgender people, known others are physically and
sexually assaulting transgender people at high rates, and strangers are
physically and sexually assaulting transgender people, but also harassing them and causing other types of violence and abuse. These acts
of violence are not single incidents, but happen across a lifetime, and
often a single individual experiences multiple acts of violence or
intolerance on a daily basis. However, although these three sources
can offer some information about raw numbers of victims, and some
information about types of crimes, the data are extremely limited by
methodological concerns that make it impossible to determine causes
or determinants of violence. Thus, these sources of information can
offer a hazy picture of the problem without the clarity needed to
effectively implement changes to law or policy, and even less for
determining what are appropriate services for preventing violence or
dealing with it effectively when violence does happen.
Not only are transgender people suffering from physical assaults,
sexual assaults, and harassment in public places by strangers, but a
large portion also suffer these forms of violence in their homes from
people that they know. Self-reports have offered the highest level of

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R.L. Stotzer / Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170179

details about the prevalence of hate crimes, suggesting that the

majority of transgender people will experience violence in their
lifetimes, and that risk for violence starts at an early age. Reports from
hotline calls and to the police offer an estimate of the high incidence of
hate crimes against transgender people as well. However, the
problems inherent to police reports namely the lack of data being
collected on bias crimes against transgender people because gender
identity is not included in hate crime legislation make estimating a
national incidence rate difcult. Legislation aimed at including gender
identity into federal hate crime tracking mandates can help to solve
this problem in police reporting.
Policy is often based on ofcial sources such as law enforcement
crime statistics; however, transgender victims of violence are almost
absent from the law enforcement view of crime. Yet, without adequate
statistics on the victimization of transgender people, it is unlikely that
these issues of violence will move onto law enforcement's agenda.
Self-report surveying is starting to bridge that gap, but with severe
limitations on methods where convenience sampling of the most
vulnerable transgender people does not give a complete view to the
needs of transgender people to protect them from, and support them
after, experiences of violence. And although the Herculean effort of
special interest groups such as the NCAVP are to be admired, these
data too are sadly skewed based on victims who are willing to report,
and those who live near one of the urban anti-violence projects in the
country. Therefore, at this point, although these three methods are
painting a beginning to illuminate the public about the violence faced
by transgender people, they are not yet adequate to truly understand
the nature, severity, consequences, or antecedents of this violence.
What is beginning to emerge from these multiple sources of data
are the increased risks of variety of types of violence, though in
particular sexual violence, faced by transgender people. This risk starts
early in life and continues throughout the lifetime. Transgender
people appear to be victimized by strangers and people they know,
including their families and loved ones, with equal frequency. In
addition, it appears that this violence occurs at home, at work, and in
public places. Although transgender people face these heightened
risks and horric instances of violence, the transgender movement is
still growing and ourishing. However, in order for effective laws and
policies to be enacted, and for effective social service organizations to
be implemented, research that addresses the serious methodological
failings of these three data sources must be addressed.
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