The AVP Action Brief tracks actions of the Trump administration that impact our communities’ safety and rights and offers concrete steps that we can take to stand up for safety and justice. We are here for you and we are in this together.
Trump Administration Continues Erasing LGBTQ People In Data Collection
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is the nation’s primary source of information of criminal victimization. Data is obtained from approximately 225,000 persons nationwide on both reported and unreported crimes. Respondents provide information about themselves like age, sex, race, marital status, education, and income. The survey includes voluntary questions about sexual orientation and gender identity for respondents aged 16 and older. The data collected is crucial to policy around hate crimes, intimate-partner violence, and other victimization subjects.
According to an announcement made this week by the Department of Justice (DOJ), “the minimum age for these questions will be raised to 18 due to concerns about the potential sensitivity of these questions for adolescents.” A 2015 national study from the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that LGB teens are at an increased risk for experiencing violence. If this population is not correctly accounted for in data collection that helps curb violence and create policy then how can we correctly respond to their crises?
Last year, another department of the Trump Administration was hard at work erasing LGBT health resources from the internet. The Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project found that a webpage devoted to lesbian and bisexual health, links to LGBT topics, and other references were removed between September and October 2017 from WomensHealth.gov, a website maintained by Health and Human Services’ Office on Women’s Health.
In December 2017, the Trump administration pushed to prohibit the CDC from using a list of seven words in 2018 budget documents: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” Suggesting that CDC employees not use words like “transgender” or “vulnerable” can change the direction of policies and research priorities at the CDC, our leading publicly funded, public health agency.
In March 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) quietly removed questions about LGBTQ elders from research and LGBTQ-specific questions were removed from the census; another example of the Trump administration’s larger strategy of ignoring LGBTQ and other marginalized communities.
These actions from multiple departments from the Trump administration together show a concerted effort to erase LGBTQ people and our experiences. When data isn’t being collected on our communities and their needs, we are left out of public policy, funding decisions, and public health programming. We must continue to demand transparency and responsibility from our publicly funded programs and insist that all communities are supported on the state and federal level.
Here’s what you can do.
- Contact your representatives to let them know that you want to push for LGBTQ and especially TGNC inclusion in policy and programming.
- Join the conversation online using the hashtag, #CantEraseUs
And you can always:
- Report violence you experience or witness to AVP and Communities Against Hate.
- If you know someone who is an LGBTQ survivor of violence who is experiencing trauma or fear as a result of these recent actions, encourage them to contact AVP’s confidential 24-hour English/Spanish hotline at (212) 714-1141. They will be connected with a counselor who understands the ways this political climate is affecting our communities.
- Get involved—volunteer with AVP!
- Support AVP: Give now to ensure our voices are heard.
- Forward this email to a friend. Ask them to sign up for the AVP Action Brief to stay informed and activated, too.
Further reading: