Statistics

Trans and nonbinary people experience higher rates of violence and crime compared to cisgender people[1], although this varies widely across the community and different demographic groups[2].

  • Number of trans people in US: Approximately 2.8 million people over the age of 13.[3]
  • Percent of people who are trans: Roughly 1% of people in the United States, including 724,000 youth aged 13 to 17 (3.3% of youth) and around 2.1 million adults aged 18 and older (0.8% of adults).
  • Percent of trans people who have experienced violence: A global study estimated that 64% of trans people experience physical or sexual violence at some point in their lifetime.[4]

Throughout this Toolkit, more detailed specifics are included, as available and applicable.

Resources

The US Trans Survey is the largest study of trans/nonbinary people’s experiences conducted in the United States. The survey was conducted in 2010, 2015, and 2022. Only preliminary data from the 2022 survey are available at this time. The 2015 survey results provide the majority of large-scale data available on trans people in the United States.

The Williams Institute is another organization that conducts research on trans people’s experiences. They provide analysis of multiple studies as well as conducting their own research.

The challenge and limitations of statistics

Statistics are essential for understanding the impacts and prevalence of violence in transgender communities. At the same time, statistics do not convey the nuances and uniqueness of individual experiences.

While this Toolkit includes statistical data to illustrate the experiences of trans and nonbinary communities with different types of crime and violence, the data available is highly limited for several reasons.

Data from the criminal legal system is limited.

  1. Trans and nonbinary people often do not report their experiences with crimes and violence. This may be due to concerns about being mistreated or dismissed when seeking services after experiencing a crime. Many survivors also shared a discomfort and distrust when working with law enforcement[5]. Past negative experiences with discrimination, and policies that exclude trans and nonbinary survivors, may also dissuade people from seeking help or making a report.
  2. Even when trans and nonbinary people do report a crime, they may not disclose their trans identity. This may be because they did not believe it was relevant to the nature of the crime, or because they worried about the potential consequences of sharing this information (discrimination, being turned away from services, facing harassment or abuse, etc.)
  3. If a trans survivor does disclose their identity, it may not be accurately reported. According to an analysis of violence against trans communities from 2017-2021, “The FBI does not enable local law enforcement to report data on transgender or gender nonconforming victims of violent crime, as its National Incident-Based Reporting System limits gender to the categories of male and female”[6]. Individual agencies may only report a victim’s assigned sex at birth, or their legal name and gender.
  4. Many states do not include gender identity in their hate crime statutes, meaning that very few of these incidents are identified as hate crimes. Anti-trans murders are a frequently-cited metric for anti-trans violence[7]. Although these data are already alarming, it’s likely that we don’t have the full picture: “Local police departments report transgender deaths to the federal government only if they identify that death as a hate crime” (Business Insider).
  5. Not all forms of violence and harm are considered crimes and thus may not be tracked by the criminal legal system. For example, internet-based stalking and harassment, doxxing, and swatting are newer developments in anti-trans efforts, and we do not have historical documentation about their impacts on trans communities.

Research studies on trans experiences are limited and not always comparable.

  1. Limited funding exists for research with trans communities. For example, between 2012 and 2022, research focused on sexual and gender minorities represented less than 1% of NIH’s first year funding.[8] In 2025, federal programs significantly cut funding to LGBTQ+ specific programs.
  2. When studies did not actively exclude trans/nonbinary people, few projects did significant outreach to trans communities and often had a small number, if any, of trans participants. Trans communities have higher rates of distrust of research projects, due to past negative experiences, and may be more reluctant to participate unless specific outreach is conducted. Trans people also have fewer economic resources which may impact their access to information on research studies, their ability to set aside time to participate, or their access to consistent electronic tools to complete the study.
  3. Studies that do include trans/nonbinary people do not often provide disaggregated data that can be used to compare trans experiences. Often trans people are included in a larger LGBT category, if reported on at all.
  4. Collection methodology is flawed or does not reflect people’s lives. Researching trans/nonbinary people is complex. People have unique ways of describing their gender that do not always fit neatly into categories in order to sort data. For example, a study that lists gender options as: man, woman, or transgender will not be able to clearly report on people who are transgender men or transgender women, as those individuals may have answered transgender OR man/woman.
  5. Trans people’s experiences may vary extensively – thus a study conducted primarily on trans men may not apply to trans women, or a study primarily of white trans people may not apply to Black or Asian trans communities.

Research, data, and resources have been removed from many online sites. As of 2025, the federal government has pressured many nonprofit organizations to remove references to race/racism, LGBTQ issues, gender, and inequality from their webpages. Federal websites, such as the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have removed significant amounts of data and resources that referred to LGBTQ communities.

 

 

[1] Loyal | thisisloyal.com. (2021, March 23). Gender Identity Disparities in Criminal Victimization – Williams Institute. Williams Institute. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/ncvs-trans-victimization/

[2] HRC Foundation. (2024). Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender-Expansive Community in 2024. Human Rights Campaign. https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-expansive-community-in-2024

[3] Williams Institute. (2025, August). New estimate: 2.8 million people aged 13 and older identify as transgender in the US [Press release]. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/trans-pop-estimates-press-release/

[4] McLellan C, Yeh PT, Kennedy CE, et al. Global Burden of Violence Against Transgender and Gender-Diverse Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. JAMA Netw Open. 2026;9(1):e2552953. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.52953

[5] James, S. E., Herman, J. L., Durso, L. E., & Heng-Lehtinen, R. (2024, February). Early Insights: A Report of the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey. Transequality.Org. https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/2024-02/2022%20USTS%20Early%20Insights%20Report_FINAL.pdf

[6] Deaths in the family: Investigating 175 transgender homicides over 5 years. (2022, November 17). Insider.Com. https://www.businessinsider.com/transgender-violence-deaths-database-murder-cases-2017-2021

[7] HRC Foundation. (2024). Fatal Violence Against the Transgender and Gender-Expansive Community in 2024. Human Rights Campaign. https://www.hrc.org/resources/fatal-violence-against-the-transgender-and-gender-expansive-community-in-2024

[8] University of Minnesota School of Public Health. (n.d.). New report traces National Institutes of Health’s recent funding of research on sexual and gender minoritized communities. https://www.sph.umn.edu/news/new-report-traces-national-institutes-of-healths-recent-funding-of-research-on-sexual-and-gender-minoritized-communities/

Back To Top