Life Course Prevalence and Co-Occurrence of Victimization Among Transgender Women

Background and purpose: Transgender women report high rates of victimization experiences, with deleterious impacts on mental health. In addition to higher rates of interpersonal violence (e.g., childhood abuse, intimate partner violence, sexual assault) compared to cisgender women, transgender women also experience other forms of victimization that are linked to their gender identity or expression (e.g., bias-related victimization). Although disparities in rates of victimization among transgender women have been demonstrated, little research has examined these experiences from a life course perspective. As a result, there are key gaps in the field’s understanding of transgender women’s victimization cumulative histories, and how victimization experiences in childhood are associated with victimization experiences in adulthood. The current study addresses these gaps by using the life history calendar (LHC) to elucidate multiple forms of victimization across the life course.

Methods: Participants included 103 transgender women ages 18-35 in Chicago and Milwaukee, who completed an interviewer administered adapted LHC assessing interpersonal victimization experiences. Childhood (i.e., child abuse, bullying, bias-related victimization, teen dating violence, and sexual violence that occurred before the age of 18) and adulthood (i.e., bias-related victimization, intimate partner violence, and sexual violence that occurred between the ages of 18 to 35) forms of victimization were examined. Descriptive statistics were run to examine overall prevalence for each form of victimization, as well as sum scores totaling childhood and adulthood experiences with victimization. Logistic regressions were run to examine associations between childhood and adulthood forms of victimization.

Findings: Prevalence of childhood victimization was high. When looking at forms of child abuse, approximately 55% reported physical abuse and 69% verbal abuse. About 90% reported experiencing bullying, and 33% reported bias-related victimization. About 27% reported teen dating violence, and 43% reported a form of sexual violence. On average, participants reported 3.17 (SD = 1.30, range 0-6) experiences with childhood victimization. Prevalence of adulthood victimization was also high: about 83% reported bias-related victimization, 59% reported intimate partner violence, and 43% reported sexual violence. On average, participants reported 1.84 (SD = 0.93, range 0-3) experiences with adulthood victimization. Childhood sexual victimization was associated with greater odds of adulthood sexual victimization (OR = 2.34). Childhood bias-related victimization was also associated with greater odds of bias-related victimization in adulthood (OR = 4.83). Teen dating violence was not significantly associated with intimate partner violence in adulthood.

Conclusion and Implications: The current study contributed to a nascent area of research, finding prevalence rates of victimization among transgender women, using a LHC approach. This study was able to discern between childhood and adulthood experiences, while also examining cumulative experiences with victimization and associations between childhood and adulthood victimization. Future researchers may wish to examine longitudinal trajectories of these victimization experiences, examine heterogeneous groups of reports of victimization (via person-centered modeling approaches), and relate victimization with mental health outcomes. However, this study contributes to a growing body of literature highlighting the necessity to provide more childhood and adulthood supports to transgender women, particularly in areas of violence prevention and victim services.