Violence against transgender people includes emotional, physical, sexual, or verbal violence. The term has also been applied to hate speech directed at transgender people and at depictions of transgender people in the media that reinforce negative stereotypes about them. Trans and non-binary gender adolescents can experience bashing in the form of bullying and harassment. When compared to their cisgender peers, trans and non-binary gender youth are at increased risk for victimisation, which has been shown to increase their risk of substance abuse.
Institutional discrimination against trans people due to transphobia or homophobia is a common occurrence for trans people. Hate crimes against trans people are common, and "in some instances, inaction by police or other government officials leads to the untimely deaths of transgender victims."
An infamous incident was the December 1993 rape and murder of Brandon Teena, an American young trans man, by two male friends after they found out that he had been assigned female at birth. These events gained international attention after being depicted in the film Boys Don't Cry (1999).
Differentiation from gay bashing
Unlike gay bashing, anti-trans violence is committed because of the target's actual or perceived gender identity or gender expression, not sexual orientation.
At least since the Stonewall riots in 1969, people from the greater trans communities have often been politically aligned with the lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities. However, researchers and some activists from the greater trans communities argue trans bashing should be categorized separately from violence committed on the basis of sexual orientation ("gay-bashing"). Anti-trans bias crimes have been conceptually and characteristically distinguished from homophobic crimes in the scholarly research. One argument is that conflating violence against trans peoples with violence against gay people erases the identities of people in the greater trans communities and the truth of what happens to them. However, campaigns against gay bashing and trans bashing are often seen as having a common cause.
In one case, perpetrators accused of hate crimes against trans people have tried to use a trans panic defense, an extension of gay panic defense. The jury deadlocked, but there is evidence they rejected the trans-panic defense. One law journal provided an analysis of the trans-panic defense, arguing in part that the emotional premise of a trans panic defense (shock at discovering unexpected genitals) is different from the emotional premise of a gay panic defense (shock at being propositioned by a member of the same sex, perhaps because of one's repressed homosexuality).
Laws covering gender identity
International
The United Nations adopted their Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 as the first global declaration of human rights. There are a number of articles in the declaration that have been suggested to specifically pertain to transgender people and violence (including, but not limited to, physical, psychological, legal, systemic, emotional, and political violence), although LGBT rights are not explicitly outlined in the document.
Article 2 entitles individuals to all of the rights and freedoms set forth in the declaration "without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status". Article 5 states that "[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Article 7 states that "[a]ll are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination". Article 9 bans "arbitrary arrest, detention or exile" (which, according to Article 2, is protected from distinction based on identity or belief). Article 20 states that "[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
Pakistan
Transgender rights are legally protected by the law of Pakistan via the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018 which prohibits discrimination and violence against trans people in the country.