Empowering trans and non-binary students against sexual assault

Sarah Peitzmeier, Micah Hopkins, and Charlene Y. Senn describe how to adapt an effective sexual assault prevention program for women for transgender and nonbinary students.

Transgender and nonbinary college students face shockingly high rates of sexual violence. Nationally, estimates suggest that 40% of transgender and nonbinary students are sexually assaulted during their four years of enrollment. ⁽¹⁾ Yet, to date, no sexual assault prevention programs for trans and nonbinary students have been developed, tested, and implemented on a large scale.

Effective solutions are urgently needed. As a new generation of transgender and nonbinary students enter campus, universities must find effective ways to curb sexual violence against them. How can colleges empower their transgender and nonbinary students?

The adaptation process

We began with a highly effective 12-hour sexual assault prevention program for female students, Turn the tables with EAAA™. It is a theory- and evidence-based program that includes teaching effective self-defense and resistance strategies for sexual assault in a peer-led, in-person group setting. The program demonstrated a 50 percent reduction in victimization among women who completed the program during their first year of college. ⁽²⁾ The Zoom-based version of Flip the scriptcalled Internet-Delivered EAAATM (IDEA³), showed promising results in a pilot trial by engaging key facilitators in reducing sexual assault and allowing participants to join a group from the comfort of their dorm room. It is currently being evaluated with cisgender women in a CIHR-funded RCT. Although many universities do not have enough transgender students to support exclusively transgender groups of Flip the script, an online intervention such as IDEA³ opens up the possibility of offering this effective intervention to groups of trans and non-binary students, as students from different universities can participate in an online course together.

How did we adapt IDEA?³ for transgender students while maintaining effectiveness? To create a new version of the program, we made systematic revisions based on what existing research has revealed about differences between transgender and cisgender students’ experiences of sexual assault. Each change was documented along with the research that motivated the revision. Through this process, the core elements of IDEA were retained.³ At the same time, activities and content will be adapted to reflect the experiences of trans and non-binary students with sexual violence on campus.

The revisions fell into two categories: 1) focusing on trans and nonbinary students and 2) addressing the types and characteristics of violence experienced exclusively or disproportionately by trans students.

Trans and non-binary students in focus

1. Strength and Joy: Fatalism – the belief that resistance to violence is futile or impossible – prevents quick action in a dangerous situation. We incorporate gender-affirming activities, such as a “gender-affirming toolkit,” to empower participants against feelings of futility.
2. Personal relevance: While the original intervention focused on female blaming and tactics used by heterosexual cisgender men, the adapted intervention includes diverse gender identities, discusses transphobia in addition to female blaming, and considers a broader range of potential perpetrators while still informing participants that the majority of assaults are perpetrated by men. The scenarios used as learning examples were adapted to be more LGBTQ+ relevant.
3. Inclusivity: Because transgender people are more diverse in their gender identity than cisgender women, the language of the adaptation is more gender inclusive. Additionally, the program takes into account the accessibility concerns that transgender people are likely to express, such as vocal dysphoria during verbal self-defense exercises.

Analysis of the characteristics of violence against transsexuals

1. Link between violence and transphobia: Violence against transgender people is driven by transphobia. ⁽⁴⁾ By making the connection between transphobia and sexual violence clear, participants can better anticipate and confront perpetrators’ coercive actions and use anger at injustice—an emotion that drives vigorous resistance—to empower themselves.
2. Addressing Trans-Specific Barriers to Resistance: Cis women and trans people share many common fears related to resisting sexual assault, such as not wanting to “make a scene.” However, trans people have unique concerns, such as fear of being accused of assault due to negative stereotypes about trans people. This program addresses these fears while also providing practice in difficult situations.
3. Profiles of violence commonly experienced by transgender people: There are three “types” of sexual assault and violence that receive special attention in the adaptation. Although cisgender women can experience these forms of violence, they are disproportionately common among transgender people:

• a. Transphobic tactics: Perpetrators who commit violence against a trans or non-binary person may, for example, tell them that a “real man/woman” would consent to certain sexual acts.
• b. Fetishization: a form of sexual objectification of marginalized groups in which the characteristic that makes them a minority (e.g. skin color, body size) is sexualized. Trans and nonbinary people often experience fetishization as a form of sexual harassment that can lead to violence. ⁽⁵⁾
• c. Intimate partner violence: This refers to sexual violence within an intimate relationship, which transsexuals experience twice as often. ⁽⁶⁾

The Trans-EAAA (TEA³) Program

Our adapted intervention – provisionally titled Trans-EAAA (TEA³) – is now available. An additional session was added to allow time for new material that affirms gender or addresses trans-specific forms of violence. This brings the total intervention time to 15 hours, or five three-hour sessions.

The next phase of this program is to recruit peer facilitators and participants for pilot testing in early 2025. We hope this intervention will prove to be the first on-campus sexual assault prevention intervention for trans and nonbinary students that is proven effective and implementable globally.

References

1. https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Key-Issues/Campus-Safety/Revised%20Aggregate%20report%20%20and%20appendices%201-7_(01-16- 2020_FINAL).pdf
2. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684317690119
3. https://doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2022-SAVIR.6
4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116498
5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-01935-8
6. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305774