The normalcy of hate : a critical exploration of micro-crimes targeting transgender people

This thesis explores the ‘lived reality’ for transgender people who experience a range of hate crimes targeting their gender identity. More specifically, it focuses on exposing ‘everyday’ and ‘mundane’ incidents of abuse which manifest in the form of verbal abuse, harassment and threats of violence. The study adopts a mixed method approach and draws on data from 396 online surveys and 32 semi structured interviews with transgender and gender non-conforming people. It also addresses the changing landscape in which hate speech is facilitated through an exploration of the construction of transgender people online. A discourse analysis of YouTube comments on ‘genderneutral toilets’ was conducted. The findings of this study highlight the pervasive and ‘everyday’ nature of both offline and online hate crime in which victimisation is normalised and intrinsically embedded into ‘everyday’ routines. It emphasises the importance of ‘space’ and ‘belonging’ and argues that particular sex-segregated spaces are conceptualised as significant spaces of risk for transgender people. The thesis embraces a Queer theoretical framework throughout and challenges dominant hate crime hierarchies, introducing ‘micro-crimes’ as a concept that seeks to legitimise the criminality of many incidents of transphobic abuse