Report

Dismantling a Culture of Violence

Human Rights Campaign Foundation, November 2024 | 48 Minute Read

Dismantling a Culture of Violence

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Introduction

Since 2013, at least 372 transgender, non-binary, gender-expansive, and gender-expansive individuals (“transgender and gender-expansive,” or just “trans,” going forward) have been killed in the United States. Year after year, the same trends emerge: the vast majority of victims are trans women of color (particularly Black trans women), the vast majority are young adults aged 30 or younger, and the vast majority are killed with a gun. Identifying and recording incidents is often delayed, as initial news coverage and police reports often refer to the victim with the wrong gender and pronouns (“misgendering”), or use their birth name rather than chosen name (“deadnaming”).

This epidemic of violence stems from a series of root causes: many victims are experiencing homelessness, housing insecurity and/or poverty; interpersonal violence plays a large role, with victims often killed by romantic partners, family members, and friends; in many other instances, victims lose their lives in transphobic acts of violence. These causes are fueled by anti-trans stigma and discrimination in all aspects of daily life, including policies and rhetoric that institutionalize transphobia though practices that prevent trans and gender-expansive people from having the same access to opportunities, resources, and power as their cisgender peers.

This resource offers a framework to understand the causes of fatal violence against the trans and gender-expansive community in the United States, focusing on factors at multiple levels of influence. These include determinants which directly place trans and gender-expansive people at risk for fatal violence, and those which impact fatal violence risk indirectly—either through increasing vulnerability to violence or through perpetuating the transphobic norms and marginalization that encourage this violence. At the end, we offer a series of actions and recommendations to make our society a safer place for transgender and gender-expansive people.

Transphobia and Anti-Trans Stigma

Transgender and gender-expansive people continue to be marginalized, ostracized and excluded from full participation in communities across the country, in ways that contribute to a culture of transphobia, anti-trans stigma, and, ultimately, discrimination and violence against transgender and non-binary people. The last few years have seen thousands of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, many of which have been explicitly anti-trans, including protests and property damage against schools and LGBTQ+ centers, bomb threats against children’s hospitals and doctors that provide gender-affirming care, millions of dollars spent on anti-trans political ads, and record breaking numbers of anti-trans hate crimes.

Transphobia and anti-trans stigma is at the foundation of the fatal violence epidemic against the transgender and gender-expansive community. Political attacks that seek to restrict where, when, and how trans people can live openly and freely as their authentic selves are both driven by and perpetuate extreme anti-trans rhetoric, and as such portray trans people as a threat to society. Lack of awareness of, or familiarity with, transgender and non-binary identities, as well as long standing cultural norms and beliefs about gender, lead to marginalization and ‘othering’ of trans people, which can play out across the life course from family rejection, to school-based bullying, to workplace and healthcare discrimination.

Addressing and Ending Suicide in the Transgender and Gender-expansive Community: Remembering Nex Benedict

On February 8, 2024, Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old non-binary high school sophomore of Choctaw ancestry in Owasso, Oklahoma, died by suicide a day after being attacked in a school restroom and beaten to the point of unconsciousness by fellow students.

When someone takes their own life—especially someone as young as Nex—it is impossible to point to any one cause. But many of the details of Nex’s death, and far too short life, reflect the numerous ways that many of the determinants of fatal violence also contribute to non-fatal violence and the high rate of suicide attempts committed by transgender and gender-expansive people—especially transgender and gender-expansive youth, who are four times as likely to attempt suicide than their peers.

Nex was assaulted in the girls’ restroom, which they were required to use due to Oklahoma’s bathroom ban. Nex had been bullied for over a year as a result of their gender identity, but this had largely been ignored by school staff. The failures of the school district were so great that the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigated the Owasso School District in response to a complaint filed by HRC; in November 2024, the OCR found the district accountable for numerous Title IX violations, including that “multiple students were subjected to repeated sex-based slurs, harassment, and physical assault.”

Addressing the factors detailed in this report will not only reduce the risk of fatal violence transgender and non-binary people face, but will also have an overwhelmingly positive impact on the mental health of transgender and non-binary people. We must all take responsibility in reshaping our culture and our communities in ways that allow trans and gender-expansive people to fully thrive.

The Social-Ecological Model of Anti-Trans Fatal Violence

The epidemic of fatal violence against trans and gender-expansive people is not the result of individual failings, but rather the result of transphobia and anti-trans stigma at multiple social, structural, interpersonal, and institutional factors that intersect to create the situations and contexts that directly and indirectly increase risk for fatal violence. To tease out these factors, we have created the following model to explain the horrific trends we continue to see year over year. Framed around the social-ecological model, a framework which has previously been used by the CDC to understand how factors at increasingly macro spheres of influence interact to increase risk of domestic violence (as well as to plan preventative interventions), this model looks to explain how everything from national and state policy, to stigma that emerges in individual relationships, contribute to the epidemic of fatal violence.

Following, this report addresses determinants of fatal violence rooted in transphobia and anti-trans stigma at four different sociological ‘levels.’

In some instances, the impact of these factors is indirect, such as by perpetuating marginalization and reducing opportunity, subsequently positioning trans and gender-expansive people to be at increased risk for violence. In other instances, these factors directly lead to violence and loss of life. Though not explicitly depicted in the above model, these conditions are further impacted by individuals’ unique identities; one’s race/ethnicity, gender identity, gender expression, geography, religiosity all intersect to influence how each of these factors are experienced. For those who hold a marginalized identity—or multiple marginalized identities—can converge to further increase risk of both determinants of fatal violence, and fatal violence itself.

Throughout, we rely on peer-reviewed articles, research and reports from other movement-based organizations, and the data and trends we have observed in our own monitoring of fatal violence, to guide our discussion.

HRC Foundation's Fatal Violence Monitoring Project

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) has monitored fatal incidents of violence against the transgender and gender-expansive community since 2013, when gender identity was first added as category to the FBI’s hate crimes reporting.

Using information gained from news articles, police reports, and conversations with advocates, loved ones, and community members, we identify and report on the life, and death, of trans and gender-expansive people killed in the United States. We tell the stories of those lost to fatal violence in a series of blogs about each of the victims and, each year on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we publish an annual report that further details the abhorrent trends we continue seeing year after year.

Results from the most current fatal violence report as of the release of this report, find that

The broadest level of the social-ecological model, societal determinants include both enacted federal and state policies that directly limit opportunity for trans and gender-expansive people, and the cultural norms and attitudes that perpetuate the marginalization and stigmatization of trans and gender-expansive people, placing them at risk for fatal violence.

Hostile Political Environment

Despite historic victories and other marginal gains in state, local, and federal policies, recent years have been marked by anti-LGBTQ+ political attacks.

At the federal level, LGBTQ+ people still lack nationwide discrimination protections in housing, healthcare, education and public accommodations.

At the state level, LGBTQ+ people face a patchwork of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, the majority of which explicitly target transgender and gender-expansive youth and adults. In the summer of 2023, HRC for the first time officially declared a National State of Emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans. In 2023 alone, over 80 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were signed into law, more than doubling the previous year's number. 2024 saw the passage of more than 40 additional anti-LGBTQ+ bills. And with the incoming presidential administration, House, and Senate in 2025, there are fears that LGBTQ+ people will see a further rollback of rights at both the state and national level.

These laws directly target all aspects of daily life for transgender and gender-expansive Americans, from who can play school sports, to where they can go to the bathroom, to what sort of health care they can receive. For transgender and gender-expansive youth in schools, they dictate what lessons they can learn about themselves in school, what books they can read with characters that resemble them, and even the ability of students and staff to refer to them with the correct pronouns and their chosen name.

Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislative Attacks

  • Bans on transgender students in school sports: Laws prohibiting transgender students from playing sports alongside peers sharing their gender identity, often effectively denying them the ability to participate in school sports at all.
  • Prohibition of transgender people from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity (“Bathroom bills”): Prohibition of transgender people from using the restroom consistent with their gender identity. Largely these bills are tied to schools – meaning that transgender students and adult school employees, parents, or others are most impacted.
  • Ban on gender-affirming healthcare. This includes laws that ban the provision of best practice, age-appropriate health care for transgender youth. Several of these bans also forbid state employers and state health plans (including Medicaid) from being able to offer gender-affirming care as covered healthcare – denying transgender youth and adults from being able to access medically necessary health care simply because they are transgender.
  • “Don’t Say LGBTQ+” Laws: Laws that censor curriculum by prohibiting and/or effectively prohibiting the acknowledgement of LGBTQ+ identity, history, curriculum, or people in the classroom, impacting students, parents, staff, and the ability of students to learn.
  • Pronoun Refusal Laws: Laws that allow or require school personnel to deadname or refuse to refer to a student using their correct pronouns.
  • Forced Outing of Students Laws: Bills that would require school personnel – including teachers, coaches, school nurses, guidance counselors, and others - to “out” students to their parents, regardless of whether that would put a student at risk at home.
  • Religious Refusal Laws (“Religious Freedom Restoration Acts” or RFRA): Laws which create and/or allow for overly broad religious exemptions to non-discrimination protections, including allowing for the refusal or services or care to LGBTQ+ people if doing so would go against one’s religious beliefs.

These laws essentially enshrine transphobic discrimination and exclusion into law, by aiming to restrict the ability of LGBTQ+ people—and trans and gender-expansive youth in particular—to live openly and freely in their daily lives, increasing their risk for violence as a result.

This risk can be direct, as legislation can force trans and gender-expansive people into locations and situations that are unsafe, placing them at risk for violent encounters. Bathroom bills and other bans/restrictions on public restroom and locker room access, for instance, force transgender and gender-expansive people to use facilities that do not match their gender presentation, where they may encounter verbal harassment, physical attacks, and sexual assault.

Further, these laws serve to legitimize anti-trans stigma and perpetuate transphobic attitudes. Much of the rhetoric and discourse from police makers and advocates for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation rely on harmful stereotypes of trans people and stigmatizing messages about trans and gender-expansive people, often which are expressed publicly and vocally. Through transphobic messaging and rhetoric which portrays trans people as dangerous predators, or “groomers,” a threat to women and girls’ sports, or mentally ill and confused, anti-trans stigma and hate spreads and becomes legitimized.

The community level of the social-ecological model focuses on the institutions and organizations that people encounter throughout their daily life. These institutions are often regulated by policies and norms at the societal level, while simultaneously, individuals are influenced by their lived experiences with both institutional practices and the people they encounter therein.

Schools and Education

In recent years many transgender and gender-expansive students have been faced with harmful legislation and school policies that attack their basic rights, and further their marginalization. In states where these policies have been signed into law, bathroom and pronoun bans prevent trans and gender-expansive students, teachers, and staff from living openly and have their identities affirmed, while curriculum bans essentially render the LGBTQ+ community invisible.

Against this backdrop, trans and gender-expansive youth continue to experience bullying and harassment from their peers, and discrimination and discipline from teachers and staff, at substantially higher levels than their cisgender peers.

As a result, many students may miss large amounts of class due to feeling unsafe at school, or may face harsher discipline (such as suspension or expulsion) from discriminatory teachers, leading to lasting impacts on their overall well-being, future economic stability, and employment opportunities.

Workplaces

Transgender and gender-expansive people face disproportionate levels of discrimination and harassment in the workplace. Though the 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County extended Title VII employment protections to include gender identity, prohibiting anti-trans employment discrimination at the federal level, in practice, workplace discrimination still occurs.

This discrimination and harassment can present itself overtly, such as in a refusal to hire, denial of promotions or raises, lack of inclusive health benefits that covers gender-affirming care (while covering similar procedures for cisgender employees), or unfairly being fired or reassigned. It can also occur in more insidious ways, such as in an unfriendly or non-inclusive workplace culture where harassing, stereotyping, or other transphobic comments from colleagues and customers occur without bystander intervention or organizational action.

As a result, employment discrimination and non-inclusive work environments serve as an additional source of stigma against transgender and gender-expansive people, while also perpetuating economic insecurity, to potentially fatal results. Unemployment and underemployment place trans people at increased risk for poverty and housing insecurity, . Limited job opportunities may further push trans and gender-expansive people out of the formal job market, leading them to survival sex work and other informal forms of work, which increase susceptibility to violence. And lack of economic stability limits the ability to move to safer, more affirming areas, and may potentially force people to stay in unsafe or violent relationships because they lack the resources to move or leave an abusive partner.

At the same time, stigmatizing workplace experiences can force trans and gender-expansive people to feel the need to choose between maintaining a desired job and living as their authentic selves. This may lead some transgender or gender-expansive people to choose (or be forced) to conceal their identity at work, perpetuating stress and poor mental health, which in turn can reduce productivity and work performance, and limit opportunity for advancement.

Healthcare

One system where trans people have often faced marginalization is in seeking health care. This includes general health care related to physical or mental health conditions, in addition to gender-affirming care related to transition.

This marginalization can take multiple forms, including

  • Providers who are uninformed or ignorant about transgender people and their health care needs—leading patients to have to educate their doctors to receive adequate care.
  • Denial of care from healthcare providers who are unwilling to treat transgender patients (even for health needs unrelated to gender).
  • Discriminatory or harassing experiences when seeking care, misgendering, unfriendly comments, and unnecessarily invasive or uncomfortable discussions.
  • Barriers to accessing gender-related care include legislative bans on care, difficulties in obtaining insurance coverage for procedures, long waiting times, lack of available providers, and/or the need to travel potentially long distances to receive care—decreasing access while increasing costs.

As a result, many trans people choose to conceal their gender identity from providers or avoid or delay seeking care altogether, limiting their ability to receive appropriate and health care and furthering risk of health disparities. At the same time, lack of comprehensive efforts to increase trans-inclusive knowledge and training among healthcare providers, against a backdrop of legislative efforts to ban or severely curtail access to gender affirming care, perpetuate access barriers, stigma, discrimination, and invisibility that creates a culture of transphobia, and contributes to the epidemic of fatal violence against trans people.

Attacks on Gender Affirming Care

Gender-affirming care, also sometimes referred to as transition-related care, is a broad umbrella term for a range of mental and physical health services that transgender and gender-expansive people may undergo as they transition to better align their physical appearance with their gender identity or expression. , There are clear, well-established, evidence-based eligibility standards for who can access various of gender affirming care and at what ages. Decisions to provide care are made in consultation with patients, doctors, and their families. Gender-affirming care is supported by every major medical and mental health organization — including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychological Association. Research has consistently found that trans people who are able to access desired gender-affirming care report better mental health outcomes and lower suicidality, and that the vast majority are satisfied and happy with the care they receive.

Yet, in recent years, trans health care has begun to face legally sanctioned barriers, with the introduction of gender-affirming care bans. These laws seek to prevent transgender and gender-expansive youth and young adults from accessing this life saving medical care, through approaches such as enacting age barriers on accessing care, or banning doctors and hospitals from providing this care, even if this care has been consented to by patients, their parents, and their physicians.

Prohibiting trans individuals from receiving gender affirming care negatively impacts mental health, increasing symptoms of anxiety, depression, suicidal idealization, and self-harm. At the same time, these laws perpetuate stigma against trans people. The rhetoric and debates surrounding these bills have led to the rampant spread of harmful misinformation and disinformation about trans people, creating false and hurtful narratives while legitimizing stigma towards trans and gender-expansive people, and thus increasing the risk of violence.

Policing and the Criminal Justice System

Inequities in the existing justice system continue to lead transgender and gender-expansive people to experience unequal treatment when seeking help from the systems designed to protect them. For instance, anti-trans legislation such as bathroom bans and gender-affirming care bans place trans and gender-expansive people at risk of policing simply for existing in public. Higher rates of homelessness and survival sex work among trans and gender-expansive people further place them at risk of over policing and arrest. And the reality that incarcerated transgender and gender-expansive inmates are often housed in facilities that do not match their gender identity, further leaves trans and gender-expansive people vulnerable to physical violence, sexual assault, and verbal abuse while incarcerated.

At the same time, transgender and gender-expansive people, particularly people of color, often avoid interaction with law enforcement because of fear of harassment, intimidation, incarceration or violence — leaving those who are victims of crime without the legal recourse and protections they vitally need. As a result, bias-motivated crimes against transgender and gender-expansive people often go uninvestigated, unreported and therefore unaddressed.

At the relationship level, determinants focus on the interpersonal interactions and relationships a person holds throughout their lifetime, and the experiences that occur therein. For transgender and gender-expansive people, fatal violence can both occur at the hands of those closest to them, or rejection and abuse in these relationships could place them on a path towards increased risk factors for future violence.

Lack of Family Acceptance in Youth and Adolescence

Family acceptance and support during childhood and adolescence plays a vital role in the mental health, wellbeing, and future development of youth of all gender identities. For trans and gender-expansive youth, family acceptance can carry the additional benefits of fostering resiliency against stigma and discrimination encountered outside of the home, facilitating safe gender transition, and increased confidence, acceptance, and pride in their transgender identity, contributing to lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance use, HIV acquisition and suicidality.

However, many transgender and gender-expansive youth experience familial rejection of them and their gender identity, which can have both immediate and long-term consequences for physical and emotional health and safety, and even future economic stability. Familial rejection often begins at an early age, either when parents suspect their child’s gender identity (or note that something is ‘different,’), or when trans youth disclose to their parents. Such rejection can range from hurtful comments and name-calling, to willful refusal to use their child’s chosen name and pronoun, to more severe violence such as physical abuse or being kicked out of their homes. Subsequently, the pathways from family rejection in adolescence to increased risk of fatal violence can be both direct and indirect.

Directly, and tragically, some trans and gender-expansive people lose their lives at the hands of family members, precisely because of a lack of family acceptance. For instance, since 2013, HRC has identified at least 9 transgender and gender-expansive people who were killed by a family member, a third of whom were under the age of 21. Four of the nine were killed by their mother or father.

Indirectly, family rejection may lead trans and gender-expansive youth to either choose to run away from home to escape the abuse they endure, or to be kicked out of their home by non-affirming family members. This can lead to homelessness/housing instability, which may be further compounded by limited access to gender-inclusive shelters. Alternatively, trans youth may enter the child welfare/foster system, where they may encounter further discrimination and abuse, especially by facilities and/or families who refuse to serve a trans child, forcing them to choose between their identity and their safety. Together, trans youth remain at increased risk of not only becoming homeless, but also staying homeless, which can lead to dangerous and vulnerable situations, including survival sex work, which make them extremely susceptible to fatal violence starting at a young age.

Intimate Partner Violence

Intimate partner violence (IPV), or violence encountered in the context of a romantic, sexual, and/or dating relationship, is far too common, with nearly 1 in 10 violent deaths in the United States between 2015-2019 were tied to IPV.

IPV is a form of violence rooted in power and domination, and thus it is often perpetuated against those who are more vulnerable, or who carry (multiple) marginalized identities. Globally, IPV disproportionately impacts women—and women of color in particular.

Transgender and gender-expansive people, and trans women of color, are at greater risk of encountering IPV. Unique vulnerabilities experienced by trans people, such as a lack of economic stability, lack of familial support, and or identity-based attacks (threats to out the trans person if they leave) are often leveraged by abusive partners to keep them in the unhealthy relationship.

If you or someone you know has been affected by intimate partner violence or sexual assault, you can seek help by calling a helpline or seeking counseling and information from one of the LGBTQ-friendly resources listed below.

At the same time, trans and gender-expansive people face unique barriers to receiving care and justice. Many shelters and domestic violence related services are segregated by biological sex (and/or gender) and age, leading to the fear—or the actual experience—of being turned away, mistreated, or deadnamed/misgendered in shelters or services that are segregated by sex. When abuse is reported it is often dismissed or downplayed by law enforcement or medical providers, particularly if the perpetrator was a same-sex partner and/or survivor was LGBTQ. If a trans person has experienced previous transphobic encounters, it may make them hesitant to report IPV at all, in order to avoid additional victimization.

As a result, transgender and gender-expansive people are doubly-vulnerable when it comes to IPV, as they are not only at elevated risk of experiencing it, but at elevated risk at being unable to leave an abusive relationship, or find support and help.

Individual level factors are the lived experiences, behaviors, and characteristics of a given person that place them at risk for fatal violence. Although these factors may reflect choices made by an individual, it is important to contextualize those choices in a broader social and structural context. For instance, the choice to engage in survival sex work can result from living in an environment where enacted anti-trans legislation and discriminatory workplace experiences bar success in a formal economy and leave minimal employment opportunities available. Likewise, homelessness can result from housing discrimination which prevents access to affordable stable housing options, or from family rejection that forces a person out of their home.

Engagement in Survival Sex Work

In the face of discrimination and economic barriers, many transgender and gender-expansive people engage in sex work (i.e., the exchange of sex for money or goods) out of survival often out of financial necessity in the face of employment discrimination, poverty, or to save money for expensive but medically necessary transition-related care.

Engagement in sex work and the current criminal status of sex work are intricately tied to the epidemic of violence that impacts transgender and gender-expansive people. The criminal status of sex work leads sex workers to become increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking, and physical, emotional, and systematic violence. Due to the criminalization of sex work, many avoid interactions with law enforcement or to decline to seek assistance, even when they themselves are victims of a crime or traumatic event. It can also prevent those with criminal charges from securing housing or other employment opportunities.

Poverty and Homelessness

Transgender and gender-expansive people face disproportionate rates of poverty and homelessness in the United States. Homelessness can result from family rejection, leading trans youth to run away or be kicked out of their home by parents and guardians who do not accept their gender identity, or can result from inability to afford stable housing, or access trans-inclusive shelters. Poverty can result from limited economic opportunities tied to workplace discrimination and transphobic stigma, which leave transgender and gender-expansive people at risk of being underpaid, or under/unemployed.

Both can lead transgender and gender-expansive people to rely on the underground economy to survive, which includes sex work, drug sales and other currently criminalized work. Involvement in these systems increases the risk of violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual assault, health disparities, police harassment and fatal violence.

Physical and Mental Health Disparities

Confronted with barriers in virtually every facet of life, transgender and gender-expansive people can be more susceptible to elevated mental health risks including depression, anxiety and suicide.

Transgender and gender-expansive people are also more likely to face physical health conditions, often related to the risk factors discussed in this report. For instance, the rate of HIV among transgender people working solely in the underground economy, including survival sex work, was more than ten times higher than other transgender and non-binary people living with HIV. Transgender and non-binary people who have experienced homelessness are twice as likely to be living with HIV.

Unfortunately, limited access to trans-inclusive healthcare too often prevents health conditions from being fully addressed. In lieu of affordable and affirming care, countless transgender and non-binary people will continue to lack the resources they need to improve their well-being and overall safety.

Violence against transgender and gender-expansive people is not a new phenomenon. We know that it disproportionately impacts young transgender women of color, and we can identify common risk factors shared among many of its victims. But in order for us to end this deeply complex crisis, we must identify new approaches and engage wider audiences to address the root causes that put transgender people at higher risk of violence.

There are many steps all of us can take to address the stigma, discrimination and risk factors that lead to a higher rate of violence against transgender and gender-expansive people. Below, we summarize some of the major ways that we can address each issue within this larger crisis, as explained in detail earlier in this report. Some are steps that can be taken by specific actors, or within specific settings, so as you review, think about what steps you may be most qualified or able to take on personally. But any and all of them can go a long way towards counteracting transphobia and transphobic stigma and, subsequently, ending the epidemic of fatal violence.

At the Societal/Policy Level

There are a number of policies and practices which can be implemented—be it federally, at the state level, or locally—that would have a demonstrable impact on improving the safety and well-being of transgender and gender-expansive people, and reducing their risk of being subjected to fatal violence. This includes passing new, pro-equality legislation; repealing and fighting back against anti-trans legislation; and implementing best practices, which will improve outcomes for trans and cis people alike.

  • Pass policies to more easily and readily facilitate gender marker changes.
    • The barriers that prevent trans and gender expansive people from obtaining accurate legal identification are deeply ingrained into our everyday systems. These include burdensome documentation requirements; high costs; unclear, unknown or unwritten policies; and, in some instances, discriminatory policies that prohibit gender marker changes altogether. To address these barriers, we encourage policies that simplify these processes, reduce costs, increase access to ID services, and root out the pervasive discrimination at the core of these harmful policies.
  • Repeal anti-trans state legislation, including bathroom bills, bans on age-appropriate, best practice, medically necessary care for minors, bans on their equal participation in sports, and more.
    • Anti-trans legislation seeks to actively exclude trans people from daily life, further legitimizing and perpetuating transphobia and anti-trans stigma. Repeal of these bills is crucial for ensuring trans and gender-expansive people can live openly and freely as their true selves, and without fear of experiencing harassment, violence, and even criminalization.
  • Expand and strengthen non-discrimination policies at the local, state, and federal level.
    • As of 2024, 23 states and the District of Columbia explicitly prohibit employment discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and only 22 states and D.C. prohibit discrimination in housing and public accommodations. Passing federal nondiscrimination laws such as the Equality Act to codify express legal protections inclusive of trans people in multiple settings can address this gap, as could amended state and local non-discrimination laws and ordinances.
  • Ensure all levels of law enforcement agencies accurately identify, investigate and report hate crimes against trans and gender-expansive people.
    • By accurately identifying, investigating, and reporting hate crimes against the trans and gender-expansive community, law enforcement agencies on all levels can more accurately gauge the scope of bias-motivated crimes and work to effectively address them. Because the reporting of hate crimes is currently not mandated under federal law, law enforcement agencies should take every step possible to ensure that their hate crimes data is being transmitted to the FBI accurately and on time. Furthermore, local legislators should ensure that city ordinances include provisions that require local police departments to identify, and report, hate crimes to state law enforcement agencies as well as the FBI.
  • Ensure that incarceration policies include protections for transgender and gender-expansive inmates.
    • Incarcerated trans people face high rates of physical, sexual, and verbal abuse, both from other inmates, and from prison guards and staff. To protect trans inmates, law- and policymakers must ensure that local and state detention facilities have non-discrimination policies that explicitly cover gender identity and ensure that transgender and gender-expansive detainees are addressed, transported and housed consistent with their gender identity. Additionally, these non-discrimination policies must provide protections securing trans people’s right to access medically-necessary and competent care while detained.
  • Ensure the safety and well-being of transgender immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers while in ICE custody.
    • ICE has consistently failed to ensure the safety and the well-being of trans and gender-expansive folks. While in ICE custody, trans and gender-expansive people disproportionally experience inadequate medical and mental health care, sexual abuse, physical violence, and isolation. We must hold ICE accountable for failing to address these significant deficiencies. Moving forward, ICE must utilize alternative measures to detention for those trans people in their custody who are not flight risks, pose no threat to community safety and are not subject to mandatory detention.

At the Community/Institutional Level

Steps at the community level focus on actions to take within the institutions of your daily life such as workplaces, schools, and healthcare facilities:

  • Advocate for trans-inclusive policies and practices in your workplace.
    • In your workplace, familiarize yourself with your employer’s policies and practices around LGBTQ+ and transgender employees. Encourage your employer to establish internal non-discrimination policies that comprehensively include transgender and gender-expansive colleagues, including providing inclusive health benefits, cultural competency training, and expanded recruiting and hiring practices.

      These policies not only benefit employees, but they also benefit businesses through improved retention of existing employees, increased sales and customer loyalty among customers, and a more positive business reputation among peers.

      At the same time, you can also help foster a LGBTQ+ inclusive workplace environment in the day-to-day. This can be as simple as asking your colleague about their weekend or joining an employee resource group and learning from LGBTQ+ voices. For those in leadership positions, practice creating an inclusive workplace by being intentional with team-building activities, engaging in conversations about unconscious bias, and equipping your team with a vocabulary around spotting unconscious bias.

      For more information on how to create a LGBTQ+ inclusive workplace refers to the benchmarks and indicators in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index.
  • Advocate for trans-inclusive policies and practices in your schools.
    • If you are the parent of a transgender or gender-expansive child, or work in education, work with your local school board or state officials to create inclusive policies that shape environments in which trans and gender-expansive students thrive in. This can include advocating for inclusive anti-bullying policies, pushing back against harmful bathroom bills or sports bans, or ensuring the creation of safe-spaces such as gender-sexuality alliances (also known as “gay-straight alliances” or “GSAs.”).

      For more details on steps to take, resources to provide, and ways to get there, visit the HRC Foundation’s Welcoming Schools program website.
  • Ensure medical and mental health services are inclusive to trans and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence and intimate partner violence (IPV) at the hands of a romantic or dating partner.
    • Support specialized service providers who offer specific care, services, and support for transgender and gender expansive survivors of sexual assault and IPV. We must also urge all care providers and organizations to offer professional development opportunities for their staff so they can provide culturally competent services to transgender and gender-expansive survivors who seek care in hospitals, primary care settings and mental health settings.

      For help locating inclusive providers, visit the HRC Foundation’s Healthcare Equality Index.
  • Train law enforcement to respond appropriately to situations where trans and gender expansive people are victims to IPV and sexual assault.
    • To avoid further victimization, law enforcement officials must be prepared and expected to treat transgender and gender-expansive survivors with respect and dignity. We also need to ensure reported cases of intimate partner violence and sexual assault against trans and gender expansive individuals are appropriately documented and investigated. Encourage your local police department to hold training on this specific issue and hold them accountable to accurate and comprehensive data reporting of violence against transgender and gender-expansive people.
  • Reshape law enforcement response and training to be LGBTQ+ inclusive.
    • Encourage your local and state law enforcement agencies to designate an LGBTQ+ police liaison and enact policies that ensure respectful, culturally competent and non-discriminatory interactions with transgender and gender-expansive people. Currently only 13 states require hate crime training for law enforcement, including for crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity. For law enforcement agencies to better serve and protect LGBTQ+ populations all states must mandate similar training.
  • Ensure homeless shelters are welcoming spaces for transgender and gender-expansive people.

At the Relationship Level

Action steps at the relationship level focus on ways you can influence the people in your life to be more trans-affirming, as well as steps you can take to support those in your community.

  • Provide resources for transgender and gender-expansive youth and their families.
  • Speak to the people in your life to educate them on issues facing the transgender community.
    • Disparities that transgender people experience have been used to dehumanize transgender and gender-expansive people and delegitimize the struggles they experience. Rather than understanding that these disparities result from transphobic stigma and denial of opportunity, these disparities are often pathologized and discussed as inherent failings, and then used to justify anti-trans legislation and further exclusion . Educating others on the various forms of discrimination that this community faces, and how stigma and cultural marginalization can negatively impact health, economic status, and more, can go a long way towards breaking this cycle.
  • Speak up if others make transphobic statements and counteract and debunk inaccurate messages and harmful narratives about trans and gender-expansive people.
    • Adopt a zero-tolerance policy for transphobia in your relationships: Speak up if you hear someone make a transphobic ‘joke’ or statement. Counteract harmful misinformation about trans people with validated research and data, and share legitimate resources in return. Engage in conversations with loved ones and community members where you express your support for trans people and share your reasons why.

At the Individual Level

Action steps at the individual level focus on activities any person can engage in, in order to demonstrate their support for the trans community, and counteract transphobia and transphobic stigma.

  • Most importantly, and most simply, the first step to take is to be a visible ally, and support the trans and gender-expansive people in your family, schools, workplaces, community, and beyond.
    • This can be as simple as expressing your support for them when they disclose their gender identity, and respecting and affirming their identity by always referring to them with the names and pronouns they prefer. If you are the parent or guardian of a trans or gender-expansive child, this can also look like allowing them to dress in clothes, and/or style their hair, in the way that best fits their gender expression, working with their schools to ensure they have the support they need, and working with their health care providers to determine if, when, and what form of gender-affirming medical care might be right for them. And if you work alongside trans people, ensure they know you are a safe person for them, even if their families, other coworkers, or others in their life reject them. By being a visible ally, you demonstrate your support for the transgender and gender-expansive communities and their right to live openly and safely –while sending the message that they will always be able to find the support of loved ones.
  • Vote for pro-equality elected officials—up and down the ticket—and speak out against anti-trans legislation.
    • We must elect and support pro-equality elected officials and candidates who are committed to addressing the needs of all their constituents – including combating the epidemic of violence against transgender and gender-expansive people. By educating yourself on harmful policy, supporting pro-equality elected officials, and fighting back against officials who vote for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, we can preserve existing protections, prevent further erosion of rights, and introduce and implement policies that make our country more inclusive and fairer for all.
  • Familiarize yourself with the legislative landscape of your state and county, and find ways to support the transgender and gender-expansive community in lieu of the current political climate.
    • With a political climate that is continuously attacking the LGBTQ+ community it can be difficult to find ways to show your support. However, there are several ways you can actively demonstrate your support and advocate for the transgender and gender-expansive community.
      • Provide a safe space for transgender and gender-expansive people.
      • Amplify the voices of the transgender and gender expansive people in your community. By amplifying the voices of and increasing the visibility of trans and gender-expansive people in your community
      • Speak out against harmful anti-LGBTQ+ legislation and advocate for pro-equality policies at all levels of federal, state, and local government
  • Support and uplift transgender and gender-expansive voices in media.
    • Support artists, athletes, activists, political leaders and other transgender and gender-expansive public figures who are sharing their stories and lived experiences. Uplift these individuals by sharing their work among your personal network and communities. Support the accurate portrayal and authentic casting of transgender and gender-expansive actors in prominent media works to reduce harmful, inaccurate images of transgender and gender-expansive people that contribute to stigma against transgender and gender-expansive people

Ending the epidemic of fatal violence against the trans and gender-expansive community requires addressing and eliminating stigma and discrimination against transgender people across all facets of society — and embracing and accepting people of all genders. It is unacceptable that transgender and gender-expansive people are killed simply because of who they are. And it is insufficient to simply grieve the loss of victims of violence. Instead, we must honor their memories with action.

We all can, and must, play a role in helping to end the violence. In removing the root causes of violence we not only will make our communities safer for trans people—we will make them safer for everyone.

Acknowledgements

HRC FOUNDATION

The HRC Foundation — a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization — envisions a world where all LGBTQ+ people can participate fully in the systems that shape our daily lives. Through public education, research, and policy and practice change, the Foundation’s impact can be felt in schools, on factory floors and corporate suites, and in places of worship. It touches LGBTQ+ lives from childhood through end-of-life, people of all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities and religious beliefs, in big cities and small towns, in the United States and across the globe.

THE PUBLIC EDUCATION & RESEARCH PROGRAM

The Public Education & Research team uses data and storytelling to foster visibility and positive change in the lives of LGBTQ+ people, across all sectors of public life. Our team endeavors to change the hearts and minds of everyday people and increase the public’s understanding of the LGBTQ+ community in all our intersecting identities. Broadly, we accomplish these goals through work that falls into the following buckets:

  • Original quantitative and qualitative research to raise awareness about key issues facing the LGBTQ+ community
  • Original storytelling and writing to create allies and advocates who are willing and eager to work in support of and alongside the LGBTQ+ community, and increase support for our advocacy within the LGBTQ+ community
  • Collaborative research and storytelling for other teams across C3/C4 to enable their decision making, advocacy, and programmatic efforts
  • Rapid response research and storytelling to provide data and talking points to support HRC’s efforts in addressing emerging and ongoing policy and political needs

THE TRANS JUSTICE INITIATIVE

The HRC Foundation Transgender Justice Initiative (TJI) addresses the urgent needs of the transgender community, with specific attention to community members deeply impacted by racism, sexism and transphobia.

Through four key pillars — economic empowerment, capacity-building, public safety and strategic communication — TJI seeks to address the realities that increase bias and discrimination and put transgender people at risk of violence.

Since launching in 2020, TJI has engaged hundreds of thousands online in public education campaigns, provided ongoing professional development to dozens of emerging leaders, trained thousands of community members on employment and technology matters, collaborated with dozens of community-based organizations across the country on programming, and raised awareness through massive media engagement reaching billions of people.

The following people contributed to the content, review, and design of this report (listed alphabetically): Jennifer Pike Bailey, Jane Ciminera, Tori Cooper, Charleigh Flohr, Shoshana K. Goldberg, Orlando Gonzales, Josette Matoto, Laurel Powell, David Stacy, Emily Ulizio, Luis Vasquez, Robert Villaflor, and Jordyn White.