Groups & Crime
Is It True That Trans Women Are More Likely to Be Sex Offenders?
The companion question: two infographics traced to their sources, and why neither is a rate.
Groups & Crime
Are LGB People More Likely to Be Victims of Crime?
Victimisation surveys against police data.
Science & Media Accuracy
Do Trans Women Retain an Athletic Advantage?
What reverses, what changes slowly, and what does not change at all.
Are Trans People More Likely to Be Victims of Crime?
In 2021 the Williams Institute, at the University of California, Los Angeles, announced transgender people were “over four times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime”. That figure comes from one of three analyses of the same US crime survey, which range from 2.5 to 4.4 times. This page sets it beside the rest of the evidence from the United States, England and Wales, and Canada.
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What this covers
Victimization of transgender people in the United States, England and Wales, and Canada, by setting: everyday crime, hate crime, homicide, prisons and jails, and schools and relationships. Each figure names its source and whether the people counted were chosen at random or chose to answer. The page does not cover offending by transgender people; that is the subject of the companion article on trans women and sexual offences, which links here.
The short answer
Yes. National surveys that interview random samples find transgender people are victims of violent crime more often than cisgender people. The US crime survey finds transgender people are victims 2.5 to 4.4 times as often, depending on the years and the comparison group. Canada and England and Wales point the same way. In American prisons in 2011–12, 39.9 percent of transgender inmates reported sexual victimization in a year, against 4.0 percent of all inmates. Homicide may be the exception: a published estimate found the overall rate probably lower. But for young Black and Latina trans women it found the rate higher than for cisgender women of the same age and race.
Everyday crime in the national surveys
Three countries have asked a random sample of their population whether they are transgender and whether they were a victim of crime. Because the people asked were chosen at random, these surveys describe transgender people as a whole, not only those who chose to answer.
The United States asked first, adding questions on gender identity to its National Crime Victimization Survey in July 2016. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) pooled 2017 to 2020 and found 51.5 violent victimizations a year per 1,000 transgender people aged 16 and over. For cisgender people it found 20.5 per 1,000, a ratio of 2.5. Analyses by the Williams Institute found about four times the cisgender rate for 2017 and 2018 alone. The Williams Institute’s figure for 2022 and 2023 was 4.4 times the rate for cisgender straight people.
The direction is not in doubt; the multiple is. The analyses cover different years, and transgender people were about 0.11 percent of those aged 16 and over on the survey’s estimate, so each rate rests on few interviews. The 95 percent confidence interval BJS gives for the transgender rate runs from 25.4 to 77.7 per 1,000.
Transgender people reported more violent crime in every analysis of the US crime survey
How to read it: each bar counts violent victimizations, attacks or threats from simple assault to rape, per 1,000 people aged 16 and over in a year. The data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Each pair of bars is one analysis; in the 2022–23 pair the comparison group is cisgender straight people. Taller means more victimizations per person.
Sources: BJS, Violent Victimization by Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, 2017–2020; Flores et al., American Journal of Public Health, 2021; Williams Institute, Anti-LGBT Victimization in the United States, 2025.
| Analysis | Years | Transgender | Comparison group | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bureau of Justice Statistics | 2017–20 | 51.5 | 20.5 (cisgender) | 2.5 |
| Williams Institute (Flores et al.) | 2017–18 | 86.2 | 21.7 (cisgender) | 4.0 |
| Williams Institute | 2022–23 | 93.7 | 21.1 (cisgender straight) | 4.4 |
The series has ended. Following an executive order on the first day of President Trump’s second term, the Justice Department removed the gender identity questions from the survey. The Williams Institute said in January 2026 that the removal will make it impossible to identify transgender people in the survey.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales has asked about gender identity since October 2019, but not in the two pandemic years, when interviews moved to the telephone. Its estimates rest on 63 to 204 respondents a year whose gender identity differs from their sex registered at birth, so they swing from year to year.
In seven of the eight comparisons in the table, those whose gender identity differs were more often victims, as in the United States. In the year to March 2023 all crime ran the other way, although crime against the person, rather than the household, was still 5.3 against 2.7 percent.
| Measure, year to March | Gender identity differs | Gender identity the same | Respondents whose gender identity differs |
|---|---|---|---|
| All crime, 2020 | 27.7% | 14.2% | 63 |
| All crime, 2023 | 6.7% | 10.5% | 133 |
| All crime, 2024 | 19.6% | 10.4% | 144 |
| Violence, 2023 | 2.6% | 1.3% | 133 |
| Violence, 2024 | 6.2% | 1.5% | 144 |
| Violence, 2025 | 3.1% | 1.4% | 204 |
| All crime including fraud, 2025 | 23.2% | 17.7% | 204 |
| All crime including fraud, 2026 | 20.1% | 17.6% | 160 |
Canada’s 2018 Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces estimated about 75,000 transgender people, 0.24 percent of those aged 15 and over. Of them, 59 percent had been physically or sexually assaulted at least once since the age of 15, against 37 percent of cisgender people. In the previous year 58 percent of them had experienced unwanted sexual behaviour in public, against 23 percent of cisgender people.
The survey’s 2025 cycle found physical assault in the previous year at 11 to 15 percent of trans men, trans women and non-binary people. Cisgender men were at 5.0 percent and cisgender women at 3.8 percent, and the gap remained after allowing for age.
Hate crime counts, and what moves them
Police-recorded hate crime measures what police record. In both the United States and England and Wales, the way police record it changed during the years covered here.
The table counts hate crime incidents in the United States motivated by gender identity bias alone, from the Crime Data Explorer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). About seven in ten were anti-transgender, 345 of them in 2025. In 2021 the FBI accepted data only from its new incident-based system, which the Congressional Research Service says likely caused a noticeable drop in submissions that year.
| Year | Incidents |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 114 |
| 2021 | 357 |
| 2022 | 474 |
| 2023 | 498 |
| 2024 | 484 |
| 2025 | 491 |
In England and Wales the Home Office recorded 4,732 transgender identity hate crimes in the year to March 2023, an 11 percent rise. It said heavy discussion of transgender issues by politicians, the media and social media may have led to more of these offences, or to greater police awareness in recording them. It later revised that year to 4,889. The next year’s 4,780 was a fall of 2 percent.
In February 2024 the Metropolitan Police changed its recording system, so the Home Office now compares years without that force. On that basis there were 3,809 in the year to March 2025, down 11 percent, the second fall in a row. Including the Metropolitan Police, the total was 4,120.
Asking victims rather than police, the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated about 176,000 hate crime incidents a year from April 2022 to March 2025. That estimate covers all five types of hate crime the survey measures. The survey’s samples are too small to give figures for any single year. Over those three years, though, 1.3 percent of adults whose gender identity differed from their sex registered at birth were victims of a personal hate crime. Among those whose gender identity was the same, 0.2 percent were.
Homicide counts, and what a rate estimate found
The Human Rights Campaign has counted killings of transgender and gender-expansive people in the United States since 2013, from local news and social media, checked against other advocates’ tallies. Its November 2024 report put the total at 372, with at least 36 in the year to 20 November 2024. It writes “at least” because deaths go unreported or misreported, and because misgendering of victims delays their identification. The November 2025 report put the total at 399, with 27 known cases in 2025.
Black trans women were half of the 36, and 59 percent of all cases since 2013. A 2024 study of 229 documented killings of transgender women from 2013 to 2021 found Black transgender women were 78.6 percent of them. The concentration among Black victims partly mirrors homicide in general. In 2023 the US rate was 21.3 per 100,000 for Black people and 3.2 for white people. Overall it was 5.9.
A count is not a rate: turning a count into a rate needs an estimate of the transgender population and an assumption about how many killings go uncounted. A 2017 study by Alexis Dinno in the American Journal of Public Health made both. It set advocates’ counts of killings for 2010 to 2014 against estimates of the transgender population, and tested a range of assumptions about undercounting and population size.
The study found the overall homicide rate of transgender people was likely lower than that of cisgender people, in 8 of 12 estimates. But it found the rate for young Black and Latina trans women almost certainly higher than for cisgender women of the same age and race.
Download this conclusion: homicide counts and rates
This card takes apart the claim that trans people are being murdered at epidemic rates. Advocates count at least 399 killings in the United States since 2013. A published estimate for 2010 to 2014 found the overall rate probably below the cisgender rate. But for young Black and Latina trans women it found the rate higher than for cisgender women of the same age and race. Anyone may download it and post it.
In prisons and jails
The National Inmate Survey of 2011 to 2012, run by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), interviewed more than 92,000 inmates, 230 of whom identified as transgender. The 101 in state and federal prisons were weighted to an estimated 3,209 nationally. The 129 in local jails were weighted to 1,709.
Among transgender prison inmates, 39.9 percent reported one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or by staff in the past 12 months or since admission. In jails, 26.8 percent did. For all inmates on the same definition the figures were 4.0 percent in prisons and 3.2 percent in jails. The transgender estimates carry standard errors of 6 to 7 points, because a hundred interviews is a small sample, but the gap is far wider than that.
The two earlier rounds, in 2007 and 2008–09, found 31.6 to 39.8 percent of transgender inmates reporting sexual victimization. The survey ran again in 2023–24, but its reports, published in December 2025, give no figures for transgender inmates.
Transgender inmates reported sexual victimization at eight to ten times the rate of all inmates, United States, 2011–12
How to read it: each bar is the share of inmates in that group reporting sexual victimization in the 2011–12 National Inmate Survey. That means one or more incidents, by another inmate or by staff, in the past 12 months or since admission. Taller means a larger share reporting it.
Source: BJS, Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12, and its supplemental tables on transgender inmates (December 2014).
| Facility | Transgender inmates | All inmates | Transgender respondents |
|---|---|---|---|
| State and federal prisons | 39.9% | 4.0% | 101 |
| Local jails | 26.8% | 3.2% | 129 |
California asked earlier. In 2006 researchers at the University of California, Irvine interviewed 322 randomly selected men in six state prisons. They also interviewed 39 transgender inmates from a seventh prison that housed many of them.
Of the random sample, 4.4 percent said they had been sexually assaulted in a California facility. Of the transgender inmates, 59 percent had, thirteen times as many. Half of the transgender inmates met the report’s own definition of rape, oral or anal penetration by force or threat of force, against 3.1 percent of the random sample. The transgender inmates were included at the corrections department’s request and chosen on purpose from one prison. The authors did not intend them to represent California’s prisoners.
England and Wales has counts, not a survey. His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service recorded 339 transgender prisoners on 31 March 2025, a series high and up 15 percent in a year. Of them, 81 percent were in men’s prisons. Nine prisoners besides the 339 had a gender recognition certificate. Most of the published figures about transgender prisoners concern assaults by them. These figures are all incidents recorded by staff, not proven cases.
In a written answer to Parliament of 5 May 2020 the Ministry of Justice said no sexual assault on a prison officer by a transgender prisoner had been reported. It said that of 122 sexual assaults in women’s prisons since 2010, five had been committed by transgender prisoners. The Mail on Sunday then reported seven such assaults from 2010 to 2018 and said they were by trans women. The Ministry answered that its data counted everyone recorded as transgender, trans men included, so that could not be assumed.
A written answer of 16 June 2020 gave 7 of 97 sexual assaults in women’s prisons from 2016 to 2019 as involving a transgender prisoner. In 6, the transgender prisoner was the assailant or suspected assailant. In February 2023 the prisons minister told the Commons there had been no assaults or sexual assaults by transgender women in women’s prisons since the policy was tightened in 2019.
A written answer of 19 May 2020 gave figures with transgender women as victims. In 2019, 11 sexual assaults in men’s prisons had a transgender woman recorded as the victim, against 1 with a transgender woman recorded as the assailant or suspected assailant. The prison service’s annual equalities report gives no such figures. The Office for National Statistics said in 2025 that it holds no prison data, which the Ministry of Justice holds.
Put side by side, there are five to seven recorded sexual assaults by transgender prisoners in women’s prisons over about a decade. There are 11 recorded sexual assaults on trans women in men’s prisons in one year. Neither number is a rate.
Why the two records look so different
American figures come from surveys that asked every kind of inmate the same questions, so transgender inmates can be compared with everyone else on one definition. English and Welsh figures come from prison incident records and parliamentary answers. They count what was reported to staff and record the transgender prisoner’s role only when a question was asked about it. A survey finds victimization that was never reported; an incident record does not. That difference, not any difference between the prison systems, is why the United States has a rate and England and Wales has counts.
Download this conclusion: the prison records in England and Wales
This card takes apart the claim that transgender prisoners in England and Wales are a danger to women in prison. The Ministry of Justice recorded 5 of 122 sexual assaults in women’s prisons since 2010, as of May 2020, as committed by transgender prisoners. It recorded 11 sexual assaults on trans women in men’s prisons in 2019 alone. Neither count is a rate. Anyone may download it and post it.
Schools, relationships, and the surveys people choose to answer
Transgender high school students reported more violence at school than cisgender boys or girls on each measure in the table. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national Youth Risk Behavior Survey first asked about transgender identity in 2023. That year, 3.3 percent of students said they were transgender and 2.2 percent were questioning. The transgender group was 612 students, so its intervals are wide: 32.7 to 48.0 percent for bullying, still clear of the cisgender figures. For weapons, and for missing school against cisgender girls, the intervals overlap.
| Experience | Transgender | Cisgender boys | Cisgender girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bullied at school, past 12 months | 40.1% | 14.8% | 20.3% |
| Threatened or injured with a weapon at school, past 12 months | 13.4% | 8.5% | 8.0% |
| Missed school because they felt unsafe, past 30 days | 25.3% | 8.5% | 14.9% |
Everything else in this setting comes from surveys that people chose to answer. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey was an anonymous online survey of 27,715 transgender adults. Its 2022 edition drew 92,329 respondents aged 16 and over.
Of the 2015 respondents, 47 percent said they had been sexually assaulted in their lifetime and 10 percent in the previous year. In the previous year, 46 percent had been verbally harassed and 9 percent physically attacked because they were transgender. Of the 2015 respondents, 54 percent had experienced intimate partner violence. The survey’s report says its respondents were not randomly sampled and that its findings should not be generalized to all transgender people.
Why the data are limited
Three limits run through every section. The samples are small, so every multiple on this page has a wide interval.
The best series are ending. The US crime survey no longer asks, and the last national inmate survey to report on transgender inmates is from 2011–12. From the year to March 2025, England and Wales’s all-crime figures include fraud and computer misuse, which breaks the series.
And counts lack denominators, the population figures a count is divided by to give a rate. Population estimates come from surveys in the United States. In England and Wales they come from a census question whose results lost their accredited status in September 2024, at the statistics office’s own request. The question had not worked as intended, as the office itself acknowledged. The companion article turns on the same problem from the side of offending.
The verdict: what the evidence shows
Yes. National random-sample surveys that ask about gender identity find transgender people victimized more often than cisgender people. In the United States the gap is 2.5 to 4.4 times, depending on the years and the comparison group. The same holds in Canada in 2018 and in 2025, and in seven of eight comparisons in England and Wales. In American prisons and jails in 2011–12, transgender inmates reported sexual victimization at eight to ten times the rate of all inmates.
Two limits matter. The samples are small, so the multiples are uncertain even where the direction is not. And counts of killings, hate crimes and prison incidents are not rates. A published estimate of the homicide rate found it probably lower overall for transgender people than for cisgender people. But for young Black and Latina trans women it found the rate higher than for cisgender women of the same age and race.
Three common claims, against the evidence
Claim“Trans people are four times more likely to be victims of violent crime.”
Within the rangeOne analysis of the US crime survey found about four times. Its 90 percent interval on the odds ratio ran from 1.5 to 7.0. The others found 2.5 and 4.4 times.
Claim“Transgender prisoners are a danger to women in prison.”
Not shownEngland and Wales recorded five to seven sexual assaults by transgender prisoners in women’s prisons over about a decade, and 11 on trans women in men’s prisons in 2019 alone. Neither is a rate.
Claim“Trans people are being murdered at epidemic rates.”
Not overallAdvocates count at least 399 killings in the United States since 2013, an admitted undercount. A published estimate for 2010 to 2014 found the overall rate probably below the cisgender rate. But for young Black and Latina trans women it found the rate higher than for cisgender women of the same age and race.
Download the conclusion
The verdict above as one image, with the two comparisons that carry it. In the US crime survey of 2017 to 2020 there were 51.5 violent victimizations a year per 1,000 transgender people, against 20.5 per 1,000 cisgender people. In American prisons in 2011–12, 39.9 percent of transgender inmates reported sexual victimization in a year, against 4.0 percent of all inmates. Anyone may download it and post it.
What would change this conclusion
This article concludes that: (1) national surveys of random samples find transgender people are victims of violent crime more often than cisgender people, 2.5 to 4.4 times as often in the United States depending on the years and the comparison group; (2) transgender inmates in American prisons and jails reported sexual victimization at eight to ten times the all-inmate rate in 2011–12; (3) a higher overall homicide rate for transgender people has not been shown, though a published estimate found a higher rate for young Black and Latina trans women than for cisgender women of the same age and race.
These conclusions would be falsified by:
• A national random-sample survey with a large transgender sample finding violent victimization at or below the cisgender rate. Examples would be a restored US crime survey question or several pooled years of the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
• A new national inmate survey that reports on transgender inmates and puts them within a few points of the all-inmate figure
• Homicide records that note victims’ gender identity, from police or medical examiners, giving a higher overall rate
Sources
Truman, J. L. and Morgan, R. E. (2022). Violent Victimization by Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, 2017–2020. Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 304277, June 2022. Source for 51.5 and 20.5 violent victimizations a year per 1,000 people aged 16 and over, the ratio of 2.5, the 95 percent confidence interval of 25.4 to 77.7, the estimate that 0.11 percent of people aged 16 and over were transgender, and the definition of violent crime. bjs.ojp.gov
Bureau of Justice Statistics. Sexual orientation and gender identity in BJS data collections. Source for the addition of gender identity questions to the National Crime Victimization Survey in July 2016. bjs.ojp.gov
Flores, A. R., Meyer, I. H., Langton, L. and Herman, J. L. (2021). “Gender Identity Disparities in Criminal Victimization: National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017–2018.” American Journal of Public Health 111(4): 726–729; and the Williams Institute’s press release of 23 March 2021. Source for 86.2 against 21.7 per 1,000 in 2017 and 2018, the odds ratio of 4.24 with its 90 percent interval of 1.49 to 7.00, and the press release’s “over four times more likely”. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu
Williams Institute (2025). Anti-LGBT Victimization in the United States: Results from the National Crime Victimization Survey (2022–2023). February 2025. Source for 93.7 violent victimizations per 1,000 transgender people against 21.1 per 1,000 cisgender straight people, and their confidence intervals. williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu
Williams Institute (2026). Erasure of Anti-Trans Violence Data in the United States. January 2026. Source for the removal of the gender identity questions from the survey after the executive order of January 2025, and for its consequence that transgender people can no longer be identified in the sample. williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu
Office for National Statistics. Crime in England and Wales: Annual Trend and Demographic Tables, editions for the years ending March 2020, 2023 and 2024 (discontinued after July 2024), table D3. Source for the share of adults who were victims of all crime and of personal crime, excluding fraud and computer misuse, by whether gender identity differs from sex registered at birth, and the numbers of respondents. ons.gov.uk
Office for National Statistics. The nature of violent crime in England and Wales: appendix tables, years ending March 2023, 2024 and 2025, table 1. Source for the share of adults who were victims of violence by whether gender identity differs from sex registered at birth, and the numbers of respondents. ons.gov.uk
Office for National Statistics. Crime in England and Wales: Annual Supplementary Tables, editions for the years ending March 2025 and March 2026 (the latter released 23 July 2026), table A1. Source for the share of adults who were victims of all crime, including fraud and computer misuse, by whether gender identity differs from sex registered at birth, and the numbers of respondents. ons.gov.uk
Office for National Statistics. Freedom of Information responses FOI/2023/4924 (17 March 2023) and FOI-2025-2822 (29 May 2025). Source for the gender identity question from October 2019, its absence in the two pandemic years of telephone interviewing, and the statistics office’s statement that it holds no prison data. ons.gov.uk ons.gov.uk
Jaffray, B. (2020). “Experiences of violent victimization and unwanted sexual behaviours among gay, lesbian, bisexual and other sexual minority people, and the transgender population, in Canada, 2018.” Juristat, Statistics Canada, 9 September 2020. Source for the estimate of about 75,000 transgender Canadians, 0.24 percent of those aged 15 and over, 59 against 37 percent physically or sexually assaulted since age 15, and 58 against 23 percent experiencing unwanted sexual behaviour in public in the previous year. statcan.gc.ca
Statistics Canada (2026). “Gender differences in experiences of violence and unwanted sexual behaviour in Canada, 2025.” Juristat, 31 March 2026. Source for physical assault in the previous year among trans men, trans women, non-binary people and cisgender men and women, and for the gap remaining after allowing for age. statcan.gc.ca
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Crime Data Explorer, hate crime statistics: national incidents by bias, 2015 and 2020 to 2025, data refreshed 15 September 2026. Source for the incidents with a gender identity bias alone and the anti-transgender incidents among them, each year from 2021 to 2025 and in 2015. cde.ucr.cjis.gov
Congressional Research Service (2025). Federal Data on Hate Crimes in the United States, R46318, updated 16 December 2025. Source for the FBI’s acceptance of incident-based data only in 2021 and its likely effect on submissions. congress.gov
Home Office. Hate crime, England and Wales: year ending March 2023 (updated 2 November 2023), year ending March 2024 (10 October 2024) and year ending March 2025 (9 October 2025), with the 2025 appendix tables. Source for 4,732 transgender identity hate crimes and the 11 percent rise with the Home Office’s explanation; the revision to 4,889 and the 2 percent fall to 4,780; the Metropolitan Police’s recording change, 3,809 without it and 4,120 with it; and the crime survey’s 176,000 incidents a year and 1.3 against 0.2 percent. gov.uk gov.uk gov.uk
Human Rights Campaign Foundation (2024). HRC’s 2024 Epidemic of Violence Report, press release, 19 November 2024; and (2025) Fatal Violence Against Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in the United States: 2013–2025 Counts and Other Statistics, last updated 17 November 2025. Source for 372 deaths since 2013, at least 36 in the year to 20 November 2024, the reasons for “at least”, half of the 36 being Black trans women, 399 cases since 2013, 27 in 2025, 59 percent involving Black trans women, and how the count is built. hrc.org hrc-prod-requests.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com
Halliwell, P., Blumenthal, J., Kennedy, R., Lahn, L. and Smith, L. R. “Characterizing the Prevalence and Perpetrators of Documented Fatal Violence Against Black Transgender Women in the United States (2013–2021).” Violence Against Women 31(14): 3756–3779, published online 17 October 2024. Source for the 229 documented killings of transgender women from 2013 to 2021 and the 78.6 percent who were Black. doi.org
Dinno, A. (2017). “Homicide Rates of Transgender Individuals in the United States: 2010–2014.” American Journal of Public Health 107(9): 1441–1447. Source for the estimate of transgender homicide rates, its method, and its findings for transgender people overall and for young Black and Latina trans women. ajph.aphapublications.org
Bureau of Justice Statistics (2025). Homicide Victimization in the United States, 2023. 8 May 2025. Source for the homicide rates of 5.9 per 100,000 overall, 21.3 for Black people and 3.2 for white people in 2023. bjs.ojp.gov
Beck, A. J. (2014). Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12: Supplemental Tables, Prevalence of Sexual Victimization Among Transgender Adult Inmates. Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ 241399, December 2014; and Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011–12, May 2013. Source for the 92,449 inmates surveyed, the 101 and 129 transgender respondents and their weighted numbers, 39.9 and 26.8 percent with their standard errors, the earlier rounds’ 31.6 to 39.8 percent, and 4.0 and 3.2 percent of all inmates. bjs.ojp.gov bjs.ojp.gov
Bureau of Justice Statistics (2025). Sexual Victimization in Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2023–24 (NCJ 310544) and Sexual Victimization in Local Jails Reported by Inmates, 2023–24 (NCJ 309852). December 2025. Source for the 2023–24 round of the inmate survey, whose reports give no figures for transgender inmates. bjs.ojp.gov bjs.ojp.gov
Jenness, V., Maxson, C. L., Matsuda, K. N. and Sumner, J. M. (2007). Violence in California Correctional Facilities: An Empirical Examination of Sexual Assault. Report to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 27 April 2007. Source for the 2006 interviews, the 322 randomly selected men and 39 transgender inmates, 4.4 and 59 percent, the rape figures, and the purposive transgender sample. prearesourcecenter.org
HM Prison and Probation Service. Offender Equalities Annual Reports 2023–24 (28 November 2024) and 2024–25 (27 November 2025), transgender prisoners. Source for 339 transgender prisoners on 31 March 2025, the 15 percent rise, 81 percent in men’s prisons and nine with a gender recognition certificate. gov.uk gov.uk
UK Parliament, written questions HL3198 (answered by Lord Keen of Elie, 5 May 2020), 45149 (answered by Lucy Frazer, 19 May 2020) and HL4973 (answered by Lord Keen of Elie, 16 June 2020). Source for five of 122 sexual assaults in women’s prisons since 2010 and none on prison officers; the Mail on Sunday’s seven and the Ministry’s reply on its definition of transgender; the 2019 figures of 11 sexual assaults with a transgender woman as the victim and 1 as the assailant; and 7 of 97 sexual assaults from 2016 to 2019, 6 with a transgender prisoner as the assailant. questions-statements.parliament.uk questions-statements-api.parliament.uk questions-statements-api.parliament.uk
Hansard, House of Commons, 21 February 2023, Transgender Prisoners. Source for the prisons minister’s statement that there had been no assaults or sexual assaults by transgender women in women’s prisons since the policy was strengthened in 2019.
Office for Statistics Regulation (2024). Review of statistics on gender identity based on data collected as part of the 2021 England and Wales Census: final report. 12 September 2024. Source for the census gender identity estimates losing their accredited status at the statistics office’s request, and for the question not having worked as intended. osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk
Herman, J. L. and Flores, A. R. (2025). How Many Adults and Youth Identify as Transgender in the United States? Williams Institute, August 2025. Source for US estimates of the transgender population being drawn from surveys. williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu
Suarez, N. A., Trujillo, L., McKinnon, I. I. et al. (2024). “Disparities in School Connectedness, Unstable Housing, Experiences of Violence, Mental Health, and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Transgender and Cisgender High School Students — Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2023.” MMWR Supplements 73(4): 50–58, 10 October 2024. Source for 3.3 percent transgender and 2.2 percent questioning, the 612 transgender students, the adjusted figures for bullying, weapons and missing school, and their intervals. cdc.gov
James, S. E. et al. (2016). The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. National Center for Transgender Equality, December 2016; and the U.S. Trans Survey’s description of its 2022 edition. Source for the 27,715 respondents, the lifetime and past-year sexual assault, intimate partner violence and harassment figures, the report’s statement that its findings should not be generalized to all transgender people, and the 92,329 respondents of 2022. transequality.org ustranssurvey.org
Cite this article
TruthBased.org. “Are Trans People More Likely to Be Victims of Crime?” Updated October 2026. https://www.truthbased.org/are-trans-people-more-likely-to-be-victims-of-crime