Coming soon: Report on American Indian and Alaskan Native transgender people

By Jack Harrison, Task Force Policy Analyst

Did you know that over half of American Indian and Alaskan Native transgender and gender non-conforming people have been physically assaulted in K-12 schools? Did you know that 40% have experienced homelessness, and one in 10 has been sexually assaulted in their place of employment? We didn’t either; at least we didn’t know all these specifics of how racism and anti-trans bias work together against First Nations transgender and gender non-conforming people until we conducted the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. And the challenge is that, even now, a lot of that information is buried in the 250-plus-page report we put out last year without being collected in one short, easy-to-read place.

That’s why the Task Force is teaming up with the National Center for Transgender Equality again to offer a new upcoming factsheet, Injustice at Every Turn: A Look at American Indian and Alaskan Native Respondents in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey. It’s the crucial next piece in our racial justice/trans justice series that has also included Black respondents, Latino/as, and those under the Asian Pacific Islander umbrella.

There is one thing we still really need help with for this publication: photos. If you are American Indian or Alaskan Native and you’re also transgender or gender non-conforming, and you feel safe and comfortable representing your community by putting your face on this important document, please contact me at jharrison@thetaskforce.org.

A note on language: At the Task Force Policy Institute, we strive to use inclusive language that reflects the self-identities of those in any given group. For native peoples, this is often of particular concern because all terms used to describe the broad range of nations referred to under the indigenous umbrella are contested. At this time, we at the Policy Institute have chosen to use “American Indian” and “Alaskan Native” partially because of their broad understandability, though the political edge of other terms like First Nations and First Peoples resonate more with our anti-racist anti-colonial values.