One in five trans and non-binary people threatened with physical violence

There is no control rate for violence motivated by a trans identity for cis people, since cis people do not usually experience violence motivated by a trans identity.

Here is the report: https://countingourselves.nz/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Counting-Ourselves-2022-Findings.pdf

If you read through it, some of the other statistics are compared with the general population. Please remember this is localized to New Zealand, and is based on self-reporting in a survey.

Here are some of the comparisons to general population:

44% of participants experienced discrimination in the last 12 months, more than double the rate reported by the general population (21%). Over one-third (35%) of participants who experienced discrimination said this was related to being trans or non-binary.

56% of participants reported feeling unsafe or very unsafe when waiting for or using public transport such as buses and trains at night. This was more than twice the rate for women (25%) and seven times the rate for men (8%) in the general population.

42% reported that someone had ever forced them, or tried to force them, to have sexual intercourse. This is more than twice the rate reported by the general population (16%). Trans women, trans men, and non-binary participants all experienced this at rates higher than for women and nearly five times higher or more than for men in the general population.

Regarding lifetime experiences (not just in the past 4 years):

Over half of participants (54%) had ever received threats of physical violence, and a similar amount had experienced attempts at physical violence towards them (48%) or deliberate physical violence (46%).

Regarding the last 4 years:

We asked participants about their experiences of physical violence due to being trans or non-binary. In the last 4 years, 19% of participants had received threats of physical violence because they were trans or non-binary. One in ten (10%) had faced attempts at physical violence, and 8% experienced deliberate physical violence because they were trans or non-binary.

Group differences for physical violence included:

• Trans women (25%) and disabled participants (25%) were more likely to have experienced threats of physical violence, while non-disabled participants (14%) were less likely to report this.
• Trans women (14%) and disabled participants (13%) were more likely to have had someone attempt to use physical violence against them, while non-binary (8%) and non-disabled participants (7%) were less likely to report this.
• Trans women (11%) and disabled participants (10%) were more likely to have experienced deliberate physical violence, while non-binary (6%) and non-disabled participants (6%) were less likely to report this.

These particular claims aren't compared to threats people experience in the general population.

However, we can look up statistics for the general population in New Zealand and try to make our own comparison.

Women in particular seem to be the victims of violence in society (which bears out in the trans survey as well, trans women being more likely to experience threats and violence). Worldwide 1 in 3 women have been subjected to physical or sexual violence by a partner, or sexual violence by a non-partner (source).

In New Zealand, women make up 59% of violent crime victims while men are 38% (source).

Similar to world-wide statistics, it looks to be that 1 in 3 women in New Zealand experience intimate partner violence (source).

However, this is all a bit apples to oranges since the survey focused on violence against trans folks was talking about threats due to being trans, and in that sense it's hard to compare to a cis control since the violence being reported was motivated by the trans identity of the victim.

We can, however, try to compare some of the other statistics, like lifetime incidence of violence (46 - 48%) to statistics like the number of adults who have experienced violence in New Zealand being between 6 - 7% (source):

The NZCVS also showed that a small group of people, just four percent of adults, experience the majority of crime, 56 percent of all incidents.

The number of adults who experienced personal violence has decreased slightly (six percent down from seven percent). But those six percent who experienced personal violence experienced more offences (29 offences per 100 adults, up from 19 offences per 100 adults a year ago). The same demographic groups (people who identify as LGBT+, people who are separated from a partner or spouse, and Māori) were significantly more likely to experience at least one incident of interpersonal violence.

It's hard to get statistics that line up perfectly - violence reported over someone's lifetime vs in the past year vs in the past four years makes it hard to reason about the exact differences, but it seems clear that the average adult in New Zealand is not experiencing violence at the same level as trans populations, and that women, indigenous, and LGBT+ folks make up most of the victims of violence.

So, it seems the violence is not evenly distributed.

The article says it's specifically violence "because of their gender identity" so it's reasonably safe to assume that yes, this is notably higher than cis people. It's a little uncommon for a cis person to receive threats because they present as the gender they were assigned at birth.

There's no control group because it's a survey of trans and non-binary people, not a study.