Date of Award

8-15-2022

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Criminal Justice

First Advisor

Robert Lytle

Abstract

Trans people experience disproportionate rates of victimization compared to cisgender people. This disparity persists despite the finding that many of the same predictors of cisgender victimization have been identified for transgender victimization (e.g., age, race, income, employment, sex work participation, homelessness), which suggest transgender-specific factors may be at play. Some scholars have proposed that transgender victimization is due to their non-conforming appearance. The purpose of this dissertation was to expand our understanding of anti-trans violence by concentrating on the relationship between appearance and sexual and recent physical victimization. This dissertation builds upon the existing transgender victimization literature by focusing on three transgender-specific factors: full-time gender identity, medical transition, and visual conformity. I relied on data from the 2015 United States Transgender Survey, the largest trans-specific survey to date, to answer three research questions: Does visual conformity influence (1) sexual victimization and (2) recent physical victimization among transgender adults after controlling for common covariates? (3) Does the relationship between trans-specific variables and sexual and recent physical victimization depend on visual conformity? I ran a series of binary logistic regressions to establish the relationship between visual conformity, transgender-specific factors, and common correlates of victimization in predicting sexual and recent physical violence among a sample of transgender adults. I found that visual conformity matters in transgender victimization experiences. These findings add to our collective knowledge about the factors that increase the risk of transgender violence and can be used to inform transgender-specific policies and programs.

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