The Trump administration is once again tightening the screws on the trans community — this time by quietly eliminating federal tracking of violent crimes against trans people, according to leaked revisions from the Department of Justice.
The documents show that the Bureau of Justice Statistics has axed vital questions about gender identity from multiple national surveys, including the National Crime Victimization Survey. That means crimes targeting trans and non-binary individuals will soon disappear from official records — as if they never happened.
Gone are questions asking whether a victim identifies as trans or what sex they were assigned at birth. What’s left is a stripped-down framework that reflects Donald Trump’s January executive order defining all Americans as strictly “male” or “female.”
That order has become a wrecking ball through federal agencies, empowering public institutions to erase, restrict, or simply ignore trans people in any official capacity. And now, it’s making it nearly impossible for researchers, policymakers, and advocates to understand — let alone address — the violence disproportionately faced by trans Americans.
From Silenced Data to Invisible Lives
“Devastating,” said Ilan Meyer of the Williams Institute at UCLA, who warned that the deletion of gender identity data will severely limit public health and safety efforts. “Such data is important for setting policy goals for interventions,” Meyer said. “The removal… will leave policymakers, researchers, and advocates with no valid information on the victimization of LGBT people.”
It’s a dangerous game of bureaucratic hide-and-seek — where the stakes are life and death. The DOJ has also modified the School Crime Supplement, the Survey on Sexual Victimization, and the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails. For trans youth in detention, this move pulls the rug out from under efforts to monitor abuse and assault, just as advocates have been gaining traction.
Linda McFarlane of Just Detention International slammed the move as a betrayal. “Now the government is turning its back on those kids, and doing so under the cover of darkness, without any chance for public comment,” she said.
It’s not just bad policy — it’s intentional silence. And for a community already under siege, it feels like the final blow.
A Pattern of Erasure
Let’s not pretend this is new. Under Trump’s second term, federal protections for trans people have been targeted across the board — from health care to education to military service. Now, by erasing data, the administration is taking away the last defense: visibility.
Statistically, trans people — especially Black and brown trans women — are more likely to face violence, harassment, and police abuse. The government’s own numbers reflected that. And that’s exactly why those numbers are now being deleted.
And what does the DOJ have to say for itself? Crickets. Attorney General Pam Bondi — a long-time culture warrior — hasn’t commented publicly, but the writing is on the wall.
The question isn’t whether this is erasure. It’s how far this administration is willing to go.
For now, civil rights groups are scrambling to preserve what data remains and sound the alarm. But the damage is being done — line by line, question by question. And unless this trend is reversed, violence against the trans community won’t just rise. It’ll vanish — from public record, public discourse, and public policy.
And that, after all, seems to be the point.