Reports and Research

DC-Specific Research

DC Trans Needs Assessment

• Access Denied: Washington, DC Trans Needs Assessment Report. Final report from our needs assessment project.
• Preliminary Findings — Community Survey. Preliminary data from the survey phase of our research in infographic form.
• Survey Instrument. The actual questionnaire used to build the data set for our reports.
• Summary Findings — Community Mapping Roundtables. A four page brief from 2011 about the findings of the first phase in DCTC’s Needs Assessment on trans communities in the District.

Other DC-Based Reports

• Report of the Hate Crimes Assessment Task Force (commissioned by the Metropolitan Police Department). This document recommends steps to improve police response to hate crimes and relations with LGBTQ communities. It should be read alongside the Community Response and 2015 LGBTQ Community MPD Report Card.
• Move Along: Policing Sex Work in Washington, DC.  A thorough analysis of the impact of law enforcement strategies on sex workers released by the Alliance for a Safe & Diverse DC. The report especially looks at how the “Prostitution Free Zones” increase profiling of trans women and contribute to mass incarceration of trans women in DC.
• The Washington Transgender Needs Assessment Survey.  The executive summary for one of the first attempts “to provide the first quantitative evaluation of the health and housing needs and concerns of the transgendered residents of the District to Columbia” originally conducted from 1999-2000. Sadly, not much has changed in the reality faced by trans people in DC. Jessica M. Xavier, principal investigator.
• Trans People’s Access to Gender-Segregated Public Spaces in Washington, DC. Conducted by the DC Trans Coalition.
• Addressing the Urgent Needs of DC Area LGBTQ Youth by SMYAL, 2011. Includes trans-specific research and policy recommendations for DC.
• “This Area Has Been Declared a Prostitution Free Zone” Academic article by Elijah Edelman. E-mail us for more info.
• “Fighting for Our Lives: The DC Trans Coalition’s Campaign for Humane Treatment of Transgender Inmates in District of Columbia Correctional Facilities” by Drake Hagner, from The Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law. Analyses DCTC’s jails campaign and recommended enforcement measures for the protections won.

Regional and National Research

General Needs Assessments and Health Reports

• Injustice at Every Turn: The National Transgender Discrimination Survey. The most comprehensive US-wide study ever conducted, by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force in 2010-2011.
• Physical and Emotional Health Needs of Transgender Individuals in Philadelphia.  A similar needs assessment survey conducted more recently in nearby Philadelphia.
• The Health, Health Related Needs and Lifecourse Experiences of Transgender Virginians. Published in 2007 by Community Health Research Initiative , Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Center for Public Policy for the Virginia Department of Health.
• The State of Transgender California. Conducted by the Transgender Law Center and released in 2009.
• The San Diego County Transgender Assessment Report. A project of  Family Health Center of San Diego’s Transgender Health Project. From 2009.
• A Fabulous Attitude: Low Income LGBTGNC People Surviving & Thriving on Love, Knowledge & Shelter. This report by Queers for Economic Justice in NYC explores “information about the economics of peoples’ lives, struggles with social services and police, as well as the many ways people generate justice.”
• Transgender Community Health Project. Somewhat dated (1999) needs assessment conducted by the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health focusing on HIV-prevention with other demographic info.
• See also this list of Guidelines, Best Practices and Policy Reports compiled by the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health

Job Discrimination

• Transgender Need Not Apply: A Report on Gender Identity Job Discrimination.  This report is especially relevant to DC because it is based in New York City which, like DC, already has anti-discrimination laws that include trans people.  This research, conducted by Make the Road LGBTQ Justice Project, an economic justice organization led by LGBTQ people of color in NYC, shows that laws on paper need strong enforcement in order to work.
• National Transgender Discrimination Survey: Brief on Employment and Economic Insecurity.

Prison

• It’s War in Here: A Report on the Treatment of Transgender and Intersex People in New York State Men’s Prisons. By the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Many of the same problems exist here in DC.
• Where the Margins Meet: A Demographic Assessment of Transgender Inmates in Men’s Prisons. Conducted through the University of California-Irvine.
• Still in Danger: The Ongoing Threat of Sexual Violence against Transgender Prisoners. By the ACLU National Prison Project and Stop Prisoner Rape (now Just Detention, International)
• Nowhere to Go But Out: The Collision Between Transgender and Gender-Variant Prisoners and the Gender Binary in America’s Prisons by Alexander Lee
• Corrupting Justice: A Primer for LGBT Communities on Racism, Violence, Human Degradation & the Prison Industrial Complex, a publication of the American Friends Service Committee.

Police

• Investigation of the New Orleans Police Department by the US Department of Justice. In this report, the federal DOJ concludes that NOPD engaged in patterns of misconduct — including substantial attention to the profiling of trans women of color as prostitutes.

Violence

• 2014 Report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and HIV-Affected Intimate Partner Violence. By the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.
• 2014 Report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and HIV-Affected Hate Violence. By the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.

Bathroom Safety

• Toilet Training.  A film and handbook detailing many of the problems that trans and gender nonconforming people face in gender segregated bathrooms, also from SRLP.

Health Care Access

• National Transgender Discrimination Survey: Brief on Health and Health Care.

Youth/Juvenile Justice

• Hidden Injustice: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in Juvenile Courts. By Legal Services for Children, National Juvenile Defender Center and National Center for Lesbian Rights. Although not trans specific, the report does an excellent job exposing the barriers to justice faced by trans and LGB youth.
• On the Streets: The Federal Response to Gay and Transgender Homeless Youth. By the Center for American Progress, released 2010. This report does an excellent job summarizing many of the life-threatening issues faced by gay and transgender youth and explores the factors that put many on the street.
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth: An Epidemic of Homelessness. By the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
• The 2007 National School Climate Survey: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth in Our Nation’s Schools. By the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.  See page 80 for trans-specific data.

*A note on language: Some researchers use labels that many of us find inaccurate or even offensive. Terminologies in trans communities also evolve rapidly. DCTC doesn’t necessarily endorse the politics of, or terms used by, all of these reports.