FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Trump White House is pointing to data compiled by transgender advocacy groups as evidence against the claim that Republican transgender policies contribute to violence against transgender people.
“The data proves the president’s law-and-order policies have benefited all Americans,” White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told the Daily Signal in a statement Thursday. “President [Donald] Trump delivered the largest decrease in violent crime in American history.”
She was referring to reports from the Human Rights Campaign and Advocates for Trans Equality.
The Human Rights Campaign tracks the violent deaths of transgender people each year, starting on Nov. 21. For the period ending Nov. 20, 2023, the group counted 33 deaths. In the period ending Nov. 20, 2024, it counted 36 deaths. Yet in the most recent year, the group only counted 27 deaths.
Advocates for Trans Equality also tracks the violent deaths of transgender people over the same time period. In the period ending Nov. 20, 2023, the group counted 53 deaths. In the following year, it counted 43 deaths. In the most recent period, it counted 27 deaths.
This decline took place while the Human Rights Campaign kept warning that anti-transgender rhetoric and policy contribute to violence against transgender people.
In its 2024 report “Dismantling a Culture of Violence,” the Human Rights Campaign claimed, “Transgender and gender-expansive people continue to be marginalized, ostracized and excluded from full participation in communities across the country, in ways that contribute to a culture of transphobia, anti-trans stigma, and, ultimately, discrimination and violence against transgender and non-binary people.”
Yet throughout the first year of his second administration, Trump reversed a number of Biden-era transgender policies, such as executive branch recognition of gender identity over biological sex and support for transgender medical procedures.
The decline in reported violent deaths among transgender people roughly coincides with a 9.3% decrease in the nation’s violent crime rate in 2025, according to the FBI. The estimated number of murders and nonnegligent manslaughters decreased 18.1%.
“Radical Democrats want sex-change surgeries for children, cashless bail, and to abolish our prisons,” Bis, the White House spokeswoman, added. “President Trump and commonsense Republicans will continue to restore law and order and take strong action to protect children from these dangerous, life-altering medical practices.”
LGBTQ+ groups maintain that violent-death counts only capture one measure of anti-LGBTQ+ violence. GLAAD’s ALERT Desk project reported more than 1,000 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in 2025, including assaults, vandalism, threats, and other incidents, claiming that 2025 was “one of the most dangerous years on record” for LGBTQ+ Americans.
Yet the GLAAD report counts “both criminal and non-criminal expressions of hate,” including protests, in addition to concrete acts. This makes its report less concrete than the fatal-violence databases.
Jay Richards, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, suggested that claims about increasing violence against transgender people seemed part of a “marketing campaign.”
“It should have been obvious to critical thinkers that it was unlikely that murders of people who identify as transgender, nonbinary, etc. would be increasing as such individuals become more common and commonplace,” he told the Daily Signal. “It always struck me as a marketing campaign by the Human Rights Campaign, and their media stenographers.”
He called it “absurd” for the Human Rights Campaign to suggest that “Americans who oppose harmful medical procedures on children” are “more inclined to violence” or that they “would even encourage such violence against people with gender dysphoria.”
“This is a slanderous stereotype, and the media should have treated it with skepticism,” he concluded.
The Human Rights Campaign did not respond to questions asking whether it views the decline as evidence of a real reduction in violence. Advocates for Trans Equality likewise did not respond to requests seeking comment on the trend.
