The US government is reportedly planning to stop monitoring violence against trans people in its latest act of trans erasure.

Leaked document revisions obtained in April revealed that the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, an arm of the Department of Justice (DoJ), has removed questions relating to gender identity from federal surveys on violence in the US.

Despite trans people being statistically more likely to experience violence, the documents, which help to uncover details and statistics of violent crime in the US, have removed a set of questions which reference or relate to trans or non-binary people.

A question asking the details of the victim’s “sex assigned at birth” has been modified to remove any trans-inclusive verbiage, while another question asking for the gender identity of the victim has been removed entirely.

It comes as part of a continued attempt by the Trump administration to erase trans people from public records and to repeal any federal protections relating to trans or non-binary citizens.

In January, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order proclaiming that the US government only recognises two sexes – male and female.

Since then, public agencies across the US have begun implementing policies which systematically erase any mention of trans people from official documents or public records.

Removal of trans violent crime questions ‘devastating’ experts say

According to The Appeal, the DoJ has followed suit by modifying at least four federal surveys, including the National Crime Victimisation Survey (NCVS), the School Crime Supplement, the Survey on Sexual Victimisation (SSV), and the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (SILJ).

The move was branded as “devastating” by the Williams Institute of UCLA senior scholar for public policy and sexual orientation, Ilan Meyer, adding that it would drastically prohibit our “understanding of LGBT populations’ health and wellbeing.”

“Such data is important for setting policy goals for interventions. The removal of sexual orientation and gender identity data will leave policymakers, researchers, and advocates with no valid information on the victimisation of LGBT people.”

Experts have also warned that the revisions will make it harder to monitor the impact on LGBTQ+ youth, particularly those in youth facilities, who are disproportionately the victims of violence and abuse.

Linda McFarlane, executive director of Just Detention International, told The Appeal that statistics are already shaky because of a reluctance by trans kids to report abuse, but the statistics that organisations do have help to create a “formal record” to understand the prevalence of the violence in the US.

“Now the government is turning its back on those kids, and doing so under the cover of darkness, without any chance for public comment,” she said.

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