In this article, I review the literature on trans people’s experiences with the criminal legal system using an intersectional lens to highlight how their multiple marginalized identities shape their treatment by criminal legal actors. The literature suggests that the intersectional contexts of trans people’s experiences must be considered and recognized when seeking to understand and apply this knowledge to improve interactions with the legal system, either in terms of victimization or system-involvement. An intersectional approach may not explain the full extent of trans people’s experiences. Still, it provides a glimpse into the multiplicative effects overlapping forms of oppression have on trans people’s daily lives and, subsequently, their system involvement.
BoppreB. (2019). Improving correctional strategies for women at the margins: Recommendations for an intersectionally-responsive approach. Corrections, 4(3), 195–221.
3.
BraunsteinM. D. (2017). The five stages of LGBTQ discrimination and its effects on mass incarceration. Miami Race and Social Justice Law Review, 17, 217–246.
BuistC. L.StoneC. (2014). Transgender victims and offenders: Failures of the United States criminal justice system and the necessity of queer criminology. Critical Criminology, 22(1), 35–47.
6.
CalhounC. (2017). Bullseye on their back: Police profiling and abuse of trans and gender non-conforming individuals and solutions beyond the department of justice guidelines. Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review, 8(1), 127–144.
7.
CarpenterL. F.MarshallR. B. (2017). Walking while trans: Profiling of transgender women by law enforcement, and the problem of proof. William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, 24(1), 5–38.
8.
CarrilloA. (2022). ‘Prea is a joke’: A case study of how trans Prea standards are (n’t) enforced. In BuistC. L.SemprevinoL. K. (Eds.), Queering criminology in theory and praxis: Reimagining justice in the criminal legal system and beyond (pp. 70–80). Bristol University Press.
9.
ChaneyC.RobertsonR. V. (2013). Racism and police brutality in America. Journal of African American Studies, 17(4), 480–505.
10.
CollinsP. H.BilgeS. (2020). Intersectionality. John Wiley.
11.
CrenshawK. (1990). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241–1299.
12.
CrenshawK. (2012). From private violence to mass incarceration: Thinking intersectionally about women, race, and social control. UCLA Law Review, 59, 1418–1472.
13.
ErichS.TittsworthJ.MeierS. L. C.LermanT. (2010). Transsexuals of color: Perceptions of discrimination based on transsexual status and race/ethnicity status. Journal of GLBT Family Studies, 6, 294–314.
GatehouseC.WoodM.BriggsJ.PicklesJ.LawsonS. (2018). Troubling vulnerability: Designing with LGBT young people’s ambivalence towards hate crime reporting (pp. 1–13). AMS Press.
HerethJ.GartheR. C.GarofaloR.ReisnerS. L.MimiagaM. J.KuhnsL. M. (2021). Examining patterns of interpersonal violence, structural and social exclusion, resilience, and arrest among young transgender women. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 48(1), 54–75.
HuntJ.Moodie-MillsA. (2012). The unfair criminalization of gay and transgender youth: An overview of the experiences of LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system. Center for American Progress, 29, 1–12.
22.
JamesJ.BrennanD. J.PeckR.NussbaumN. (2023). Family nonsupport of young trans people, experiences of legal problems, and access to the legal system. Journal of LGBT Youth, 20(2), 248–264.
KichlerR. (2022). “What has kept me alive”: Transgender communities and support. Journal of Homosexuality, 69(14), 2463–2482.
25.
Lambda Legal. (2014). Protected and served? The executive summary of Lambda Legal’s national survey that explores discrimination by police, courts, prisons, and school security against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) people and people living with HIV in the United States. Author. https://www.lambdalegal.org/sites/default/files/publications/downloads/ps_executive-summary.pdf
26.
LevasseurM. (2014). Gender identity defines sex: Updating the law to reflect modern medical science is key to transgender rights. Vermont Law Review, 39, 943–1004.
27.
MalkinM. L.DeJongC. (2019). Protections for transgender inmates under PREA: A comparative study of correctional policies in the United States. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 16, 393–407.
28.
McCannE.BrownM. J. (2021). Homeless experiences and support needs of transgender people: A systematic review of the international evidence. Journal of Nursing Management, 29(1), 85–94.
29.
MogulJ. L.RitchieA. J.WhitlockK. (2011). Queer (In)justice: The criminalization of LGBT people in the United States. Beacon.
30.
MountzS. (2020). Remapping pipelines and pathways: Listening to queer and transgender youth of color’s trajectories through girls’ juvenile justice facilities. Affilia, 35(2), 177–199.
31.
NadalK. L.DavidoffK. C.Fujii-DoeW. (2014). Transgender women and the sex work industry: Roots in systemic, institutional, and interpersonal discrimination. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 15(2), 169–183.
PanfilV. R. (2014). Better left unsaid? The role of agency in queer criminological research. Critical Criminology, 22(1), 99–111.
34.
PotterH. (2013). Intersectional criminology: Interrogating identity and power in criminological research and theory. Critical Criminology, 21(3), 305–318.
35.
PotterH. (2015). Intersectionality and criminology: Disrupting and revolutionizing studies of crime. Routledge.
36.
RitchieA. J.MogulJ. L. (2007). In the shadows of the war on terror: Persistent police brutality and abuse of people of color in the United States. DePaul Journal of Social Justice, 1, 175.
37.
RosenbergR.OswinN. (2015). Trans embodiment in carceral space: Hypermasculinity and the US prison industrial complex. Gender, Place & Culture, 22(9), 1269–1286.
38.
SeranoJ. (2007). Whipping girl: A transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity. Seal Press.
39.
SextonL.JennessV.SumnerJ. M. (2010). Where the margins meet: A demographic assessment of transgender inmates in men’s prisons. Justice Quarterly, 27(6), 835–866.
40.
StotzerR. L. (2009). Violence against transgender people: A review of United States data. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 14(3), 170–179.
41.
StotzerR. L. (2014). Law enforcement and criminal justice personnel interactions with transgender people in the United States: A literature review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(3), 263–277.
42.
SumnerJ.SextonL. (2016). Same difference: The “dilemma of difference” in the custody and care of transgender prisoners. Law & Social Inquiry, 41(3), 616–642.
43.
WhiteM. E.CartwrightA. D.ReyesA. G.MorrisH.LindoN.A.SinghA. A.BennettC. M. (2020). “A whole other layer of complexity”: Black transgender men’s experiences. Journal of LGBT Issues in Counseling, 14(3), 248–267.
44.
WorthenM. G. F. (2016) Hetero-cis–normativity and the gendering of transphobia. International Journal of Transgenderism, 17(1), 31–57.
