Hate Crimes against Trans People in the UK

You may have seen recent articles in the press decrying the rise of hate crime again in the UK. You might even be asking yourselves why this is happening, if its just going up because of increased reporting.

When it comes to the trans community the picture is much more complicated. Let's start by looking at the data.

The Home Office publishes the hate crime data every year.

 This is all hate crime across England and Wales for the last 10 years, with the Home Office claiming the following.

● in year ending March 2022, there were 155,841 hate crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales, a 26 per cent increase compared with the previous year

● this was the biggest percentage increase in hate crimes since year ending March 2017, when there was a 29 per cent rise

Which isn't exactly true. The year ending 2017 recorded 80,393 hate crimes, versus 94,115 for year end 2018 - which is an increase of 17%, not 29%.

So this year is both the biggest increase in both numerical terms and percentage terms.

Hate Crime against the Trans Community

Let’s look at the trans community specifically, as it's something I've been looking at and collating data for some time.

This data is often interpreted in different ways in order to downplay the impact on the trans community.  Even the Home Office does it :

Transgender issues have been heavily discussed on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in related hate crimes.

So what’s the reality?

The facts are pretty simple. This year, hate crimes against the trans community has seen an increase of 56% - the biggest increase since records started/

Since 2011/2012, hate crimes against the trans community have risen by an astonishing 1291% , or an average of 31% year on year, every year, for the last 10 years.

These figures are also based on reported hate crime, However we know that 86% of hate crime against trans people is unreported, which would mean that an estimate of the actual number of hate crimes is nearer to 27,000.

Why is it happening?

This is a very complex question with lots to consider.

The first is that we are now in the sixth year of a manufactured moral panic against transgender people in the UK, which is part of more global activity going on (known as the anti-gender movement, which is heavily linked with various groups but most prominently the far right, religious right and men’s rights movements), especially in America, Australia and Europe.

Here in the UK it all started with proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act in 2016, which would simply make it easier for a trans person to change their birth certificate. This change was quickly and deliberately used to spread misinformation on social media by anti-trans lobby groups, using the spectre of ‘men in women’s spaces’ to fearmonger.

The UK press quickly caught onto this as a method of boosting flagging sales, spreading misinformation further. UK political parties then adopted it as a way of distracting from issues in government.

But the biggest driver of hate against trans people is the UK Press.

Last November, as I mentioned in my TEDx talk, the UK Press were publishing an average of 2 negative articles a day. By July 2022, during the Converative Leadership contest, that had increased to 33 negative articles a day.

As you can see from this graph, this increase in anti-trans media articles correlates directly with the increase in hate crime.

And that pretty much brings us to where we are now. While the moral panic and misinformation campaigns continue, and while Government continues encourage social division - things are only going to get worse. In fact, we’re already seeing it with increases in hate crime across the board for the wider LGB community, as well as other minority communities including race, ethnicity, disability and others.

What’s the real impact of this?

The main thing that often gets lost in the data is that each of these crimes affects a person. Most trans people are targeted and abused daily, both within the community and on social media. Many are subjected to multiple attacks a day, which vary from deliberate misgendering to physical violence - all of which impact confidence, mental health and wellbeing. Around half of trans people are afraid to leave the house due to transphobic abuse.

Being perfectly honest - If I reported every instance of hate I received every day, all I would be doing is reporting hate crime. All day, every day.

What can you do to help?

Most people don't know this - but:

If you witness a hate crime, you can report it.

You don't need to be the victim of a hate crime to report it. By doing so you will help highlight the real scale of hate crime in the UK, and reduce the burden on trans people to do so.

Hate crimes can be reported in many different ways:

● Online via TrueVision

● By phone by calling 999 in an emergency (ie if it feels like the situation could get heated or violent, someone is in immediate danger or you may need support right away), or 101 if it’s not an emergency.

● By visiting your local police station

● By visiting a Hate incident reporting centre

● By using other services such as Crimestoppers or Stop Hate UK, or LGBT specific services such as Galop.

● You can even report hateful material online if you've seen something on a website or social media that promotes hatred or violence against a particular group

Find out more about hate crime from Essex Police.