In his first weeks in office, and consistent with his campaign language, President Trump issued executive orders that target or severely impact LGBT people. The orders include declaring that the U.S. federal government will officially recognize only two sexes based on sex at birth, male and female; ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs across federal minority groups; and rolling back anti-discrimination legal protections for LGBT people.
President Trump, members of Congress, and state legislators have been clear throughout their 2024 campaigns and since the election that they plan to attack LGBT rights, both in state and federal policies and laws. Indeed, over the past decade, states across the country have initiated legislative proposals and have passed several statutes that limit the rights of LGBT people, with especially severe attacks on transgender rights. In 2023, the ACLU tracked 510 anti-LGBT bills, and in 2024, it tracked 533 anti-LGBT bills that were introduced in state legislatures across the United States, representing an increase over previous years. This year, by February 10, 2025, the ACLU had already tracked 339 anti-LGBT bills across the U.S.
Similar efforts have been made in the U.S. Congress. In 2024, Congress killed legislation that earmarked funds for LGBT organizations, including, for example, funds to build 74 new housing units for LGBT seniors in Massachusetts and to construct a new community center for the Gay Community Center of Philadelphia. In December 2024, the U.S. Senate passed the defense budget by an 85 to 14 vote, a bill that included a ban on TRICARE, the military’s health care plan for service members, from covering medical treatment of gender dysphoria that the bill alleged “could result in sterilization” for children under 18. In January 2025, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would prohibit federal funding from going to K-12 schools that allow transgender girls on girls’ sports teams, effectively barring transgender girls from female school sports teams.
These recent developments continue years of attacks on LGB, and especially transgender people. Such acts can lead to increased violence against LGBT people. For example, researchers found that following Trump campaign rallies in 2016, which the authors described as containing hate rhetoric, there was an increase in hate-motivated incidents in the counties where the rallies happened as compared to other counties and the same counties prior to the rally. Similarly, after the 2016 presidential elections, transgender and gender non-conforming people reported experiences of hate speech and violence. Following online attacks on transgender care, hospitals and doctors faced increased harassment, including death threats. This rhetoric and the anti-LGBT sentiments it promotes can lead to adverse mental health outcomes for LGBT people.
Violent Victimization of LGBT people in the United States 2022-2023
In this report, we present our analysis of pooled National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data from 2022 and 2023 (N = 540,732). NCVS is a survey that documents experiences with victimization in a representative sample of the United States population.
We found that LGBT people experienced 106.4 violent victimizations per 1,000 persons, and transgender people experienced victimization at a rate of 93.7 per 1,000, compared with 21.1 per 1,000 among non-LGBT persons.
LGBT rates of victimization by race/ethnicity show that Black (non-Hispanic) LGBT people had the highest rates of victimization overall, followed by Hispanic and White (non-Hispanic) LGBT people. Rates for cisgender straight populations were similar across these race/ethnicity groups (Figure 1).
