The Trump administration has quietly eliminated questions on gender identity and sexual orientation from several key federal surveys, effectively ending government monitoring of violent crimes and abuse against transgender and LGBTQ+ individuals.
According to a report from The Appeal, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) made the unpublicised changes last month, impacting four major surveys, including the National Crime Victimisation Survey (NCVS) and the Survey on Sexual Victimisation (SSV).
These revisions come in the wake of Donald Trump’s “gender ideology” executive order, issued on his first day back in office, which aligns with broader efforts by his administration to erase federal recognition of trans people.
“The removal of sexual orientation and gender identity questions from federal surveys is devastating to our understanding of LGBT populations’ health and wellbeing,” said Ilan Meyer, senior scholar at the Williams Institute at UCLA.
“Such data is important for setting policy goals for interventions. Without it, we have no valid information on the victimisation of LGBT people.”
❌ Surveys Affected
The four federal surveys now stripped of gender identity data are:
- National Crime Victimisation Survey (NCVS): Surveys ~250,000 people annually, including those who don’t report crimes to police. It was instrumental in showing that LGBTQ+ people experience violent crime at five times the rate of non-LGBTQ+ individuals.
- School Crime Supplement (SCS): Used to track school-based bullying. Previously included gender identity-related harassment; the updated version only references harassment based on “sex,” vaguely defined as “being male or female.”
- Survey on Sexual Victimization (SSV): Mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). New revisions omit gender identity questions, a critical loss for trans inmates already facing disproportionately high rates of assault.
- Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (SILJ): No longer allows individuals to self-identify their gender; respondents can only indicate their sex assigned at birth.
🚨 Advocates Sound the Alarm
The changes sparked outrage from researchers, advocates, and LGBTQ+ rights organisations.
“Trans kids in youth facilities are sexually assaulted at horrifying rates,” said Linda McFarlane, executive director of Just Detention International.
“Despite many risks, some report the abuse, helping officials understand and address the violence. Now the government is turning its back on those kids — under the cover of darkness, without any public comment.”
The revisions are the latest in a wave of anti-trans policy moves. Just last week, the Department of Justice defunded the National PREA Resource Center, which provided support to state and local agencies to comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
“An entire body of research is being undermined simply because the government hates trans people,” McFarlane added.
