The harassment of a transgender woman named Saoirse Gowan on the Metro this past weekend is part of an uptick in harassment and other crimes against trans and the greater LGBTQ+ community in the past year, according to D.C. community advocates and the Metropolitan Police Department.  

Since her video of the harassment went viral — it has more than 672,000 views — Gowan says she’s heard from many transgender people who’ve experienced or witnessed incidents like hers. Those reports track with what some community-based organizations serving the LGBTQ+ community are seeing. SMYAL, a local group that supports LGBTQ+ youth, told WAMU/DCist that they have seen a recent increase in informal reports of harassment.

Metropolitan Police Department data also shows more hate crimes based on sexual orientation and gender identity/expression in the first three months of 2022 compared to the same period last year, with six incidents based on sexual orientation through March 31, compared to four last year, and two based on gender identity/expression, up from zero during the same period of last year.

Gowan’s experience looked painfully familiar to members of her community who saw the video. 

“I’ve been harassed three times in the last three months,” says Hayden, a friend of Gowan who asked that her last name not be used because of security concerns. Hayden says she’s been targeted on the Metro for being transgender and these incidents have only become more rampant.

Gowan and others interviewed for this story believe the harassment and violence is being fueled by the anti-LGBTQ+ policies passed in conservative states. Hayden says she noticed an escalation after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in February ordered child abuse investigations of transgender kids receiving gender-affirming care, even though such policies have not been enacted in D.C.

“It’s common. It’s been happening,” Gowan tells DCist/WAMU of her own experience. “We feel really, really, really unsafe right now.” 

The 1-minute-18-second cellphone video shows a man yelling familiar transphobic slurs at Gowan, who’s seated directly in front of him. At one point, he gets up from his seat to get closer to Gowan, and then records her with his phone as he insults her. There are several people on the train but no one says anything. A Metro transit police officer eventually boards the train at a stop, and Gowan tells the officer that the man had been harassing her.

In addition to the Texas policy, bills that opponents are calling “Don’t Say Gay” legislation have popped up in at least a dozen states. The one in Florida bans public school teachers from engaging in classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for students in kindergarten through third grade.

Gowan and others who watched the video recognized the man’s hateful comments, which baselessly suggested that people like Gowan see children as sex objects, because they sound a lot like the claims sponsors of these bills use to justify their policies. Defenders call these bills anti-grooming and anti-pedophilia measures, language that fearmongers by luridly associating the LGBTQ+ community with sex crimes, explains Kellan E. Baker, executive director of the Whitman-Walker Institute.

“Legal attacks and media narratives that paint the lives of transgender people as expendable and seek to legislate LGBTQ people out of existence embolden the perpetrators of anti-LGBTQ violence,” says Baker. “From subtle ‘dog whistle’ messages to overt exhortations to violence, politicians who traffic in anti-LGBTQ laws are giving cover to their supporters to dehumanize, harass, and harm LGBTQ people.”

Local people who support the LGBTQ+ community say they are seeing it firsthand. 

Family members of some Whitman-Walker clients have begun parroting these political talking points, according to a behavioral health specialist at the health care provider that focuses on the LGBTQ+ community. “The attacks are very wearing on our people. It’s exacerbating existing anxieties, depression, familial relationships,” the specialist told WAMU/DCist through a spokesperson. 

And residents who rely on SMYAL’s mental health or housing programs are more frequently recounting to case managers incidents of homophobia or transphobia at the workplace, says SMYAL communications manager Hancie Stokes. Acts such as misgendering are coming from managers, colleagues, and patrons, says Stokes. “There’s a high prevalence of this,” she says, “and not all of it is recorded or reported.” 

Anecdotal reports of anti-LGBTQ sentiment come amid a dangerous period for the community. The Human Rights Campaign documented a record number of violent fatalities nationally against transgender and gender nonconforming people last year, transgender women of color are disproportionately impacted by harassment and violence. National hate crime data shows increased attacks based on race, ethnicity and sexual orientation over the last several years, but that doesn’t even reflect all the attacks, according to those who study the matter, due to underreporting and meager surveying that takes into account that various identities influence discrimination.

The people who spoke to DCist/WAMU for this story believe incidents reported to police or in the media are the tip of an iceberg.  Now, after Gowan’s high-profile harassment, those same people are calling for action to make D.C. a sanctuary amid the hate.

Angela Brown of Casa Ruby, a nonprofit devoted to LGBTQ+ youth, says that while D.C. has made strides in terms legislative efforts that protect her community, to actually end the violence, everyone needs to work collectively through their social networks to change the hearts and minds of people who discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.

And while Gowan was extremely grateful for the transit officer who intervened, she recognizes the limitations of law enforcement and is interested in alternative solutions. Most of the transgender people who have contacted her in the past few days do not view a “police crackdown” as an answer to their problems, given their own negative experiences of being targeted by police, she says. Gowan declined to press charges against her harasser because she does not believe imprisoning transphobic people stops the violence.

Instead, Gowan suggests an education campaign on how people can deescalate situations like hers — seeing as no bystander intervened when she was harassed. And Hayden floated the idea of an accessibility program, where someone can request company if they feel unsafe or unable to ride the Metro alone.

“One thing I really want to do coming off this is to try to work politically with other trans people to see what we can do to make D.C. a safer place for us,” says Gowan.