Discrimination, harassment, and violence against Black trans, intersex, queer, and gender nonconforming (LGBTQ+) people pervade virtually every institution and setting, including schools, workplaces, systems of policing, prisons, parole and probation, immigration, health care, and family and juvenile courts. As a result, Black LGBTQ+ people experience high levels of poverty, criminalization, health disparities, and exclusion in the U.S. Black trans women and gender nonconforming people in particular experience some of the highest levels of killings, violence, poverty, policing, criminalization, and incarceration of any group in the U.S.
INCLUDING ADDITION TO ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS TO ENSURE FULL ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT, HEALTH, HOUSING AND EDUCATION
White supremacy, racial capitalism, cisheteropatriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism intersect in the lives of Black queer, trans, gender nonconforming and intersex people, fueling state violence, family, domestic, interpersonal and community violence.
Discrimination, harassment and violence against trans, queer, gender nonconforming and intersex people pervade virtually every institution and setting, including schools, workplaces, systems of policing, prisons, parole and probation, immigration, health care, and family and juvenile courts.
Black trans women and gender nonconforming people in particular experience some of the highest levels of killings, violence, poverty, policing, criminalization, incarceration, and structural exclusion of any group in the U.S.
The current political climate, in which federal, state and local governments have overtly allied with the Christian Right, is fueling a full-on assault on trans and queer people. In spite of recent legal victories affirming that queer and trans people are protected from employment discrimination under Title VII, queer and trans people continue to be denied basic legal protections against discrimination in employment, housing, and government benefits.
Additionally, the federal government has repealed basic protections for trans youth in schools, and trans people in health care, workplaces and in prisons, and continues to expand religious exemption laws to enable widespread discrimination against trans and queer people.
In addition to undermining what limited protections currently exist, the very existence of trans and gender nonconforming people is being described as a “burden” on institutions and employers. This mounting anti-trans rhetoric from government officials empowers state, community, and interpersonal violence, as well as violence in the form of state and local legislation denying queer and trans people protection from discrimination in public accommodations and private employment. It has also emboldened proactive targeting of trans youth and criminalization of all who provide them any form of care. Organized campaigns attacking Black trans women and girls and women and girls with intersex traits who excel in sports further stigmatize our communities. Each of these trends converge to sanction and further fuel violence against trans and gender nonconforming people in our homes and communities.
Almost 30 trans women of color were murdered in 2019, the majority of whom were Black trans women, and two of whom died in, or shortly after being released from, ICE custody. By mid-year, at least 14 transgender people have been killed in 2020. The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects reported 52 cases of fatal violence motivated by homophobia in 2017; 60% involved Black victims, primarily Black trans women.
Trans and intersex people are further pathologized through ableist and reductive labels like “gender dysphoria,” “gender identity disorder,” and “transvestic disorder,” while intersex variations are referred to as “disorders of sexual development.” As a result, trans and intersex people are excluded from and subject to abuse and neglect when seeking medical care, and criminalized when self-managing gender affirming care denied to them by state and private actors. Additionally, states still permit unnecessary and non-consensual genital surgery on intersex infants.
Many forms of violence experienced by Black trans and gender nonconforming people are further exacerbated by the state’s refusal to provide identity documents reflecting the name and gender marker trans people use. Many states require evidence of medical transition, court orders, and processing fees in order to change identity documents, creating often insurmountable barriers to securing basic identification documents.
These realities contribute to exclusion, criminalization, and demonization of Black queer and trans people in every aspect of life. According to the Black Census, over half of Black LGB+ people report being treated with discourtesy multiple times a month. Sixty-two percent of Black gay and lesbian respondents report feeling threatened or harassed several times a year, compared to 52% of heterosexual respondents. One in five trans women report feeling threatened or harassed on an almost daily basis, and 45% of trans women and men report feeling threatened or harassed weekly, compared to 19% of cisgender respondents.
From all angles, Black trans, queer, and gender nonconforming people are being pushed out of public life and denied the right to simply exist safely.
Black queer, trans and gender nonconforming people experience pervasive profiling, harassment, and discriminatory enforcement — particularly through “public order” offenses, bathroom policing targeting trans, gender nonconforming and intersex people and people with disabilities for violence and arrest, drug and prostitution-related offenses, and in the context of responses to domestic violence and self-defense — as well as consistent lack of protection by police. According to the Black Census, “LGB+ respondents are even more likely than heterosexual respondents to have experienced a negative interaction with the police in the last 6 months,” with 45% of gender non conforming/nonbinary people reporting negative interactions.
According to the 2015 U.S. Trans Survey (USTS):
According to the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS):
Pervasive police profiling and targeting produce high rates of incarceration and detention among Black queer and trans people:
Once incarcerated, Black queer and trans people experience endemic homophobic, transphobic harassment, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, and unsafe, dehumanizing, and degrading treatment in police custody, in prisons, and by probation and parole officers. Physical and sexual assault in jails, prisons, and detention centers is pervasive.
According to federal data, transgender people are nearly ten times more likely to be sexually assaulted than the general prison population, with an estimated 40% of transgender people in state and federal prisons reporting a sexual assault in the previous year. In the same federal survey, prisoners who identified as LGB were approximately three times as likely to report sexual abuse as other prisoners.
Black queer and trans migrants share these experiences, as well as violation and exclusion in the context of immigration enforcement.
According to the Transgender Law Center, the upsurge of forced migration and xenophobia, fueled by the global impacts of United States imperialism, have disproportionately affected Black LGBTQ+ migrants internationally.
Black queer and trans migrants find themselves cornered by the risks of both migration and of remaining in their place of origin. As organizing for LGBTQ rights intensifies in Africa, the Caribbean, South & Central America, etc., so do the numbers of LGBTQ+ people forced to flee repression, only to be detained when seeking asylum at U.S. borders. In detention, LGBTQ+ migrants are 15 times more likely to be assaulted, and are typically the last to receive legal representation. While the number of Black migrants crossing at the border is the highest it’s ever been, Black LGBTQ+ migrants remain at the margins of the margins.
According to the Black Census report, “Black LGBTQ+ people face higher unemployment rates, are more likely to experience economic hardship, and are less likely to have health care coverage than the general population.” Rates of poverty are especially high among respondents who identified as nonbinary and trans men.
According to the 2015 US Trans Survey (USTS) and the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS):
As a result of pervasive poverty, unemployment, and structural exclusion, Black queer, trans and gender nonconforming people are further forced into dangerous spaces and criminalized economies.
The 2011 NTDS found that 21% of Black trans respondents had been refused medical care because of bias, and a Lambda Legal study found that 70% of trans and gender nonconforming respondents had experienced discrimination by medical providers.
This lack of access to basic medical care is particularly devastating given the great need for health services, including gender affirming and mental health services, among our Black trans family.
No data is collected on the health and well-being or health outcomes of Black intersex people, especially if they have experienced genital mutilation. However, according to “I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me, ” a report issued by Human Rights Watch in 2012, surgeons performed 2,991 intersex related surgeries on youth under the age of 18 and 1,759 surgeries on children under the age of 5. Except for Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), which can involve salt wasting from the kidneys, intersex variations are not life-threatening and pose very few health risks to the child, making such surgeries unnecessary.
Black queer, trans and gender nonconforming people experience widespread homelessness and housing insecurity due to pervasive discrimination and structural exclusion in public and private housing and shelters across the country.
Black queer, trans and gender nonconforming people are disproportionately pushed out of school and educational settings, further driving economic disparities.
Black queer, trans, intersex and gender nonconforming people face devastating levels of discrimination in many areas of their lives, and particularly at the hands of police and the prison industrial complex and medical industrial complex, as well as widespread poverty and structural exclusion. This solution seeks to stop those discriminatory practices and protect queer, trans, intersex and gender nonconforming people’s civil rights, including access to education, healthcare, housing, and employment.
