Rebecca L. Stotzer, "Violence against transgender people: A review of United States data."

"Violence against transgender people: A review of United States data." ~ Rebecca L. Stotzer, in Aggression and Violent Behavior 14 (2009) 170–179

What a lovely name for a journal, Aggression and Violent Behavior. 

Not saying we don't need such a journal... 

just sayin'

This is almost all quote poaching as I have no skills to critique the methods here and am more interested in the implications of the diverse findings. & by interested I mean disgusted. Also outraged. Also, unsurprised (at the Human, all too Human). Bold is extra disgust/outrage/etc. If you are curious about the sources that are embedded in these quotes or the article itself, it is available here.

"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."(171)

"The number of gender non-conforming people in the United States is unknown"(171)

"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 non-conforming 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 fire 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."(171)

"Not only is sexual violence occurring with a high level of frequency, but this violence starts at an early age. One study found that first 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)."( 172)

"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."(172)

"Perhaps one of the most disappointing findings from self-report surveys are the findings that the largest percent of perpetrators of sexual violence are people who are known to the victim, including partners and family members. "(172)

"Additional details about the perpetrators of these crimes comes from Xavier et al. (2007), who found that acquaintances were the most  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%)."(172-173)

"Within the transgender community it is common knowledge that interacting with authorities invites a certain level of possible victimization, or revictimization for transgendered people. (…) However, an interesting finding 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."(173)

"Reback et al. (2001) also found that 37% of the perpetrators of verbal abuse were police."(175)

"...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."(175)

"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 first 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."(175)

"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 // 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."(175-176) 

"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 fleas,’ that's what I got. So from that moment on I knew the police were never gonna help me.” (Interviewee in Moran & Sharpe, 2002 p. 279)"(176)

"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 at-tempts 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."(177)

"Stotzer (2008) re-analyzed data from five years worth of reports of hate crimes against trans- gender 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. "(177)

"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."(177)

"Self-reports have offered the highest level of  // 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. "(177-178)

"Policy is often based on 'official' 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."(178)

"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 horrific instances of violence, the transgender movement is still growing and flourishing. 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."(178)

Nong Tum, portrayed in the film Beautiful Boxer
(Uekrongtham 2004) is both kick-ass
(in the most literal sense of that term)
and a Kathoey from Thailand. She aint got
much to do with the violence in the USA
that this report talks about, but
her ass-kicking skills seem
worthy of evoking nonetheless.