Experts warn of early signs of transgender genocide in America
Genocide scholars are warning that current politics targeting transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans show signs indicative of early warning signs of mass atrocity, according to a story by Walker Bragman for the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. Some experts, including former heads of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, believe the United States may already be in the “early-to-mid stages of a genocidal process against trans and nonbinary and intersex people.”
“I am concerned about genocide against trans people in the United States in the near future,” said Dr. Henry Theriault, a past president of IAGS. He warned that “we’re already at the point for trans folks, for immigrants, where the damage is being done,” and stressed that it’s urgent we prevent this trajectory from continuing.
More than half of U.S. states have now passed laws restricting transgender people’s access to gender-affirming care, public bathrooms, and/or sports. At the same time, there’s been public “eliminationist” rhetoric, such as calls to “eradicate transgenderism” from public life. Experts say this kind of language dehumanizes trans people and essentially gives a green light for violence from everyday citizens.
Dr. Gregory Stanton, who founded and leads Genocide Watch, described the attacks on gender-diverse people as a “genocidal” attempt “to destroy a gender group.” He pointed out that Raphael Lemkin’s original concept of genocide could include social and gender groups. “I think what they’re doing here is they’re trying to destroy a gender group… the objective here is literally, physically to destroy this group,” he said.
Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, the institute’s co-president, connected political rhetoric to fear-based strategies that stoke hostility toward trans people. Meanwhile, Haley Brown, a former genocide researcher, pointed out how legislation like bathroom bills can quietly give permission for discrimination and violence.
“It’s always been about policing … down to the very physiological characteristics and features of the humans that exist within that state,” Brown said.
The scholars also pointed to rising anti-trans rhetoric and policy changes—things like executive actions that affect nondiscrimination protections and access to health services—as part of a growing framework of exclusion. Violence against transgender people has already gone up, with homicide rates doubling between 2017 and 2021, according to the non-profit Everytown for Gun Safety. Because the trans population is relatively small, they’re especially vulnerable, the experts noted.
Von Joeden-Forgey characterized current trends as particularly alarming.
“The genocidal process is really about destroying identities, destroying groups through all sorts of means,” she explained. She also warned that a state moving toward genocide would no longer function as a democracy.
Bregman’s article is the first in a multi-part series examining genocidal patterns and historical parallels during the second Trump administration and is available here.
