Transgender and non-binary students are at a greater risk of sexual assault than those whose sex matches what it says on their birth certificates, a new study says.
Researchers found that one in four transgender and non-binary teens in middle schools and high schools reported being sexually assaulted in the previous year.
They were also more likely to be assaulted when they used school bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity rather than their sex assigned at birth.
For transgender girls, their risk doubled at schools with restrictive bathroom and locker room policies.
The research team, from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, are now calling on states to require schools to let students use facilities the gender or sex they identity as.
A new study from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health found that about 19% of transgender girls, 27% percent of transgender boys, 18% of non-binary teens assigned male at birth and 27% of non-binary youth assigned female at birth reported being sexually assaulted
For the study, published in the journal Pediatrics, the team surveyed more than 3,600 teens who are transgender and non-binary, meaning they don’t identify as male or female.
The students were in grades seven through 12 and were about 15 years old on average.
Overall, 26 percent of them reported experiencing sexual assault in the previous 12 months.
Broken down, the prevalence of sexual assault was about 27 percent among transgender boys – who identify as male but are labeled female on their birth certificates – and 27 percent among non-binary youth assigned female at birth.
Roughly 19 percent of transgender girls – who identify as female but were assigned male at birth – and 18 percent of non-binary teens assigned male at birth reported being sexually assault.
Sexual assaults can put teens at risk of a number of issues including major depression, PTSD and substance use disorder.
Meanwhile, previous studies have found that teenagers who do identify as the sex they were assigned at birth have lower rates of assault: 15 percent for girls and four percent for boys.
Most transgender students say schools have placed limits on their restroom or locker room use, the team noted in its study.
Often, they are required to use facilities based on their sex assigned at birth or sent to designated ‘unisex’ restrooms that are not used by other students.
So the researchers decided to test if these policies increased the risk of being sexually assaulted.
They found that transgender boys were 26 percent more likely to experience sexual assault under policies that blocked them from using boys bathrooms.
And transgender girls had more than twice the assault risk when they had to use restrooms and locker rooms for boys.
At schools with restrictive bathroom and locker room policies, the rate of sexual assault for trans and non-binary students climbed to 35 percent, overall.
‘We can’t tell from this study whether restrictive restroom and locker room policies cause sexual assault,’ said lead author Gabriel Murchison, a PhD student at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.
‘However, at the least, they seem to be a marker for an environment where trans and non-binary youth are at risk. This gives us a concrete place to start when it comes to making schools safer.’
In an accompanying editorial, Dr Stephen Rosenthal and Dr Diane Ehrensaft, both of the University of California, San Francisco, noted that California is the only state that requires schools to let students use facilities that match their gender identity rather than on the gender they were assigned at birth.
They said that the new study’s results seem to add to a growing body of evidence suggesting failure to support trans and non-binary youth can endanger both their physical and mental health.
‘Transgender youth who express their gender identity but are required to use facilities matching their genitalia are not only at risk for verbal and physical harassment, including sexual abuse, but, not surprisingly, some will avoid using restrooms altogether, ‘ they wrote.
‘[This results] in increased risk for inadequate fluid intake, urinary retention, urinary tract infections, impacted bowels and school avoidance.’