Unequal Treatment of Transgender Individuals in Domestic Violence and Rape Crisis Programs

ABSTRACT

Transgender people often face barriers in accessing culturally competent domestic violence and rape crisis services, yet few studies have used a national sample of transgender people to study this topic or examine differential rates of discrimination within this population. The National Transgender Discrimination Survey, conducted in 2008 to 2009 by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, collected data about discrimination affecting transgender people across a variety of settings. The present study involves secondary data analysis of this data set to examine whether certain sociodemographic factors and psychosocial risks are significant predictors of unequal treatment of transgender people in domestic violence programs (N = 2,438) and rape crisis centers (N = 2,424). For both settings, findings indicate that transgender individuals who are low-income and not U.S. citizens are more likely to experience unequal treatment based upon being transgender or gender-nonconforming. Within domestic violence programs, transgender people of color, those with disabilities, and those more frequently perceived to be transgender by others are more likely to experience unequal treatment. Psychosocial risk factors (suicidality, sex work history, and disconnection from family) predict unequal treatment in both settings. The article concludes by discussing implications for social service practitioners and future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Transgender
• discrimination
• domestic violence
• sexual assault
• social services

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was conducted as part of a dissertation, and portions of the methodology section are adapted from this source. The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality conducted the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, which generated the data analyzed within this research. Their report on the survey data is available from the National Center for Transgender Equality Web site (http://transequality.org).

Thank you to my dissertation committee (Dr. Eugene Walls, Dr. Nicole Nicotera, and Dr. Walter LaMendola) for their encouragement and mentoring related to this project and to Lisa Langenderfer-Magruder for reviewing this manuscript and offering feedback.

Funding

Funding support for this research was provided by an American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women, a dissertation fellowship from the University of Denver Office of Graduate Studies, and a Dissertation Support Award from the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.

Notes

1. LGBTQ is an umbrella acronym that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning, and it is the default acronym used in this article to reference this population. Other acronyms, such as GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender), are occasionally used to match the language of a source being cited.

2. The survey response option “part-time as one gender, part-time as another” was designed to capture individuals whose gender identity may differ by context or who might be just starting to transition. This subpopulation is less often examined in the literature (Grant et al., 2011).