Campus Sexual Violence and the Cost of Protecting Institutions: Carceral Systems and Trans Student Experience

Abstract

Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) students on university campuses experience high rates of sexual violence relative to their cisgender peers and are less likely to utilize campus resources. Despite this, TGD students’ voices are often left out of conversations about campus sexual violence. To learn about TGD students’ experiences of university sexual violence prevention and response infrastructure, we conducted focus groups with 21 TGD students at a large university in the northeastern United States. Informed by abolition feminism and critical trans politics, we undertook this thematic analysis to examine the limits of current systems to respond to TGD students’ needs and reduce their victimization. Our findings highlight how carceral logic contributes to TGD students’ exclusion from and distrust of university systems to address sexual violence. Further, our findings illustrate how TGD students’ visions for healing-oriented approaches to sexual violence on campuses align with transformative justice principles. These findings suggest that feminist social work must support the development of campus sexual violence prevention and response infrastructure that moves away from a reliance on carceral logic and toward approaches developed by community-led transformative justice organizations to inform inclusive, intersectional, campus sexual violence prevention and response efforts.

Keywords

transgender issues intimate partner violence qualitative feminist theories and research critical theory

Introduction

Sexual violence (SV) on college campuses is a national concern, with rates of nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force or inability to consent as high as 13% across United States’ (U.S.) college campuses (Cantor et al., 2020). Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) students, including binary transgender students (i.e., man, woman) and students with identities outside of the gender binary (e.g., nonbinary, agender), report rates significantly higher than their cisgender (cis) peers. For example, the National College Health Assessment-II found that TGD students were 9.5 times as likely to experience nonconsensual attempted sexual penetration, nine times as likely to experience nonconsensual sexual penetration, and 6.5 times as likely to be in a sexually abusive relationship when compared to cis men (Griner et al., 2020).

Transgender and gender diverse students also have a different experience of campus SV prevention and response (SVPR) infrastructure than cis students, evidenced by data indicating they are more aware than their cis peers of available resources if they experience SV, yet less likely to use those resources (Cantor et al., 2020). Transgender and gender diverse students’ isolation from campus resources results from a lack of trust of these systems due to SVPR policy, campus climates that are not supportive of their gender identity, and direct manifestations of transphobia and cissexism they experience within their institutions (Gartner et al., 2023). Campuses build their SVPR resources to comply with federal laws (e.g., Education Amendments Act of 1972, [Title IX] 2022; Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act of 1990, [Clery] 2018). These laws are built on historical and contemporary hegemonic assumptions about how SV happens, who it happens to, and how resolution should be sought. These assumptions exacerbate inequities and render resources inaccessible or unresponsive to marginalized students (Méndez, 2020). Transgender and gender diverse perspectives are largely missing from conversations about campus SVPR infrastructure, which leads to their continued exclusion from these systems.

This study engaged TGD college students from a large public university in the northeastern U.S. through focus groups to learn about their experiences of current SVPR infrastructure. We sought to move past conversations about how existing systems could better include TGD students to understand how extant approaches were, by design, exclusionary and harmful. We undertook this analysis to reenvision an approach to campus SV that responds to TGD students’ needs rather than relying on federal legislation to motivate infrastructure and programming. Our analysis applies abolition feminism (Davis et al., 2022) and critical trans politics (Spade, 2015) to illustrate the limits of current university SVPR for TGD students. Although data were collected from students at one university, this study provides insight into prior quantitative findings highlighting TGD students’ underutilization of campus resources compared to their cis peers (Cantor et al., 2020).

Literature Review

In this review, we join with anticarceral feminist scholars to illustrate how approaches to SV on college campuses engage carceral logics. Despite a lack of evidence, campuses position Title IX procedures and corresponding threats of punitive measures as tools of justice for campus SV survivors (Lorenz et al., 2022; Shepp et al., 2023). By placing the responsibility for SV on individual “bad actors,” Title IX draws on carceral logic that implies violence is rooted in individuals as opposed to a product of environments, cultures, and systems.

Carceral Feminism: Laying the Groundwork for Current Campus Approaches

Title IX, as applied to SV on college campuses, grew out of larger movements to end sexual and intimate partner violence. These movements evolved from the feminist antiviolence movement, originating in civil rights movements of the 1960s, to antiviolence movements upheld by carceral logic (Kim, 2018).¹ In the early feminist antiviolence movement, grassroots rape crisis centers were often run by people with experiences of SV. They provided direct services and centered social change in their missions (Shepp et al., 2023). Grounded in a history of Black women advocating for bodily autonomy in the wake of slavery and the Jim Crow era (Davis et al., 2022), this intersectional movement developed agencies and programs specifically for ethnoracial minorities (Thuma, 2019).

Ideological shifts in the feminist antiviolence movement altered its guiding frameworks. The neoliberal policy landscape of the 1970s and 1980s presented an opportunity to gain public support for victims by framing SV as a crime (Whalley, 2020). Bernstein (2010) labeled this overreliance on the state and the criminal legal system (CLS) to reduce or end gender-based violence ‘carceral feminism’. This approach attained policies such as incorporating domestic violence into the criminal code, enhancing criminal penalties for gender-based violence, and state mandatory arrest legislation in cases of domestic violence (Kim, 2018). The partnership between feminists and the CLS culminated in the largest piece of legislation to address SV in U.S. history, the Violence Against Women Act (Kim, 2013; Violence Against Women Act [VAWA], 1994). This legislation accelerated the professionalization of SV services and advocacy organizations and shifted resources away from their community-led origins (Mehrotra et al., 2016; Shepp et al., 2023). The understanding of gender-based violence as a result of systems of oppression necessitating structural remedies was replaced by a focus on services for those harmed and punishment for those declared guilty of causing harm (Davis et al., 2022).

By embracing the CLS under the pretense of protecting all women, services were rendered inaccessible to BIPOC and other marginalized communities who experienced violence from law enforcement and wanted to avoid further harm from the CLS (Kim, 2011). Ingrained in the shift to an individual-centered approach to SV were gender essentialist notions about who perpetrates violence (men) and who are victims (women). These views, apparent in the legislation's name “The Violence Against Women Act,” promoted assumptions about gender and power, obscuring structural drivers of inequity. The emphasis on preventing violence against cis, white women still contributes to service inaccessibility for minoritized groups (Davis et al., 2022). Transgender and gender diverse people can still be excluded from services and may fear discrimination or additional trauma in the process of seeking help following experiences of SV (Jordan et al., 2020).

History, Function, and Limits of Title IX on College Campuses

The evolution of college campus SVPR programs and policies mirrors the trajectory of the broader antiviolence movement. Although Title IX, which guides SVPR on campuses, is civil and not criminal legislation, the practices universities engage to respond to SV reflect the adversarial hallmarks of the CLS (Collins, 2016). Although well intentioned, this legislation is structured and administered on campuses with an individual rights framework, which remedies individual experiences of harm through punishing those who enact bias-motivated harm (Spade, 2015). The aim of this approach is to remove offenders, with the underlying assumption that their removal will foster campus safety (Collins, 2016). This model protects the institution by shifting the responsibility for SV from university culture onto students and fails to address the social, contextual, and societal structures of violence that foster SV on campuses (Hong, 2017).

In 2011, the Department of Education's (DOE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) outlined Title IX's three SV charges: (1) responding effectively to individual experiences of SV; (2) preventing future SV; and (3) remedying the impacts of SV on those who experienced harm and the university community (Ali, 2011). While this guidance allows universities to employ strategies best suited to their institution, most have opted for a punitive, “zero-tolerance” approach (Méndez, 2020). This approach mirrors the CLS with adversarial processes such as standards of proof and hearings (Bizier, 2020; Collins, 2016; Shepp et al., 2023). In addition, campus SVPR staff have become increasingly professionalized, as those with legal expertise are favored over advocates who have extensive experience in SVPR (Brubaker & Keegan, 2019).

University policies and approaches are structured to assuage universities’ fears of consequences if they are found to be noncompliant with federal guidance, at the expense of supporting students’ well-being (Driessen, 2020). Title IX is enforced through multiple mechanisms. First, Title IX enables the DOE and OCR to perform compliance reviews of universities, to investigate individual complaints, and to revoke federal funding if an institution is found to be “deliberately indifferent” to reports of SV (Duncan, 2014; Know Your IX, 2023; Méndez, 2020). Second, students can bring a private suit for monetary damages against a university (Duncan, 2014). As additional federal guidance has been issued, Title IX has become increasingly adversarial. In 2020, the Trump administration implemented regulations requiring live hearings and cross-examinations, a departure from the Obama administration's emphasis on a single-investigator model (Melnick, 2020). Now, students who engage with Title IX may have to face the gathering of evidence by police or investigators, review by a judicial board, and the possibility of being cross examined (Melnick, 2020; Shepp et al., 2023). This is aligned with the ways in which U.S. society has become defined by criminalization and imprisonment, influencing how our culture understands schools and disciplinary procedures (Spade, 2015).

Theoretical Framework

This paper frames the discussion of TGD college students’ experiences through the lenses of critical trans politics (Spade, 2015) and abolition feminism (Davis et al., 2022). Critical trans politics and abolition feminism are informed by a long history of organizing for transformation of violent systems and institutions (Critical Resistance & INCITE!, 2003; Spade, 2015). Critical trans politics examines how administrative systems impact TGD people's lives through perpetuating gendered norms and being “sites of production and implementation of racism, xenophobia, sexism, transphobia, homophobia and ableism under the guise of neutrality” (Spade, 2015, p. 73). The aim of critical trans politics is to build effective resistance to the harms trans people face and illuminate the limits and benefits of law reform as a tactic in improving TGD people's lives (Spade, 2015). Abolition feminism seeks to dismantle carceral solutions as a response to gender-based violence because they enact interpersonal, systemic, and institutional violence upon those who have experienced harm (Davis et al., 2022). Abolition feminism sees SV as a product of oppressive systems and recognizes systems of control as contributing to, rather than ameliorating, experiences of harm (Davis et al., 2022). To move toward liberation, we must deconstruct the university as a site that relies on punitive measures to respond to SV. As social workers we draw on these frameworks because (1) critical trans politics can guide policy advocacy efforts to avoid advocating for symbolic reforms that fail to impact the lives of TGD students or that unintentionally bolster systems of oppression and 2) abolition feminism provides a politically informed practice framework that centers intentional, community-centered responses to violence and systemic oppression.

Gaps and Aims

We entered this project recognizing that the SVPR systems at the university where the study was conducted were falling short of meeting TGD students’ needs. The literature discussed highlights how Title IX mandates and the carceral logic embedded within institutional Title IX practices across the country will continue to harm TGD and other minoritized students seeking support in the aftermath of SV. This paper engages TGD students’ voices to examine the limits of university SVPR systems. We draw on abolition feminism and critical trans politics to ground a vision of alternatives that center healing and cultural change over liability and punishment.

Methods

The university in which the study took place, a large northeastern public university in the U.S., participated in the American Association of Universities (AAU) climate survey in 2015 and 2019. Like many universities, our campus noted a significant increase in victimization rates across these surveys (Cantor et. al., 2019). While many factors likely contributed to the increased reporting noted in survey outcomes (e.g., the #MeToo movement), the report motivated the campus administration to launch a small grant program to promote promising SVPR approaches. The PI for this study, who has over 20 years of experience in SV prevention, response, and research was new to the campus when the AAU findings were announced. When reading the report, she noticed the disparately high rates of SV experienced by TGD students and their low reporting rates and confidence that a report would be taken seriously or treated fairly. This, combined with structural issues such as the lack of an LGBT center on campus, the lack of campus confidential advocates to support students who experience SV, and the few other queer or TGD researchers addressing these issues on campus, prompted her to pursue funding and build a team to better understand TGD students’ SVPR priorities. We conducted five virtual, synchronous focus groups through Zoom aimed at gaining insight into TGD university students’ impressions and experiences of campus SV prevention, response, and policy. The major product of the initial project was a report of recommendations to improve the university's SVPR infrastructure for TGD students (see Gartner et al., 2023 for details about initial team and data analysis). All study procedures were approved by the institutional review board at the University of Pittsburgh.

This paper describes a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006, 2022) initiated by a genderqueer first-year doctoral student in collaboration with the PI, a cisgender woman who shares an anticarceral orientation to SVPR. This graduate student was not a part of initial data collection or the original coding process and wanted to more deeply explore participants’ distrust of the university, police, and SV policies than was possible in the preliminary coding process aimed at a university audience. Their lens emerged from being a part of trans community and witnessing TGD people's distrust of institutional supports as a social worker in healthcare settings. Recognizing needs for both immediate actionable solutions to address TGD students’ experiences of SVPR on campus, and to honor broader structural issues that students spoke to, this paper attempts to situate this critique within a framework of theories and movements to liberate TGD people from state sanctioned oppression and violence.

As a group, we are both insiders and outsiders to the topic of study and our positionalities informed our inquiry, analytic lens, and approach to meaning making (Carr, 2000; Sikes, 2004). Our authorship team is white and queer, and as social workers we have all worked with people who experienced SV. We have all experienced SV, most of us while enrolled in some type of education system (secondary, undergraduate, and graduate). Notably, none of us engaged SV reporting systems and one author felt betrayed by unknowingly seeking support from a mandated reporter. Now, as social work faculty and graduate instructors, we are embroiled in Title IX as mandatory reporters. Additionally, although a genderqueer person conducted much of the analysis, the remaining authors are cisgender (two cis women, one cis man). The power dynamics among us were typical of research teams at large research institutions. The doctoral students (one now junior faculty at another institution) were research assistants for the PI, and an outside faculty member joined as a consultant on critical feminist scholarship and SV research.

Participants and Recruitment

Transgender and gender diverse university students were recruited via email and social media postings, which were disseminated to student networks through campus community partners, such as academic departments, student services offices, and student organizations. To be included in our study, participants needed to (1) identify as TGD, (2) be a currently enrolled student (undergraduate or graduate) at the university under study, and (3) be at least 18 years old. Although the student population at the university in which this study took place was 73% white at the time of data collection, we used purposive sampling to maximize representation of ethnoracial minorities due to the limited inclusion of TGD BIPOC perspectives in in campus SV literature overall (Klein et al., 2023). Interested students completed a Qualtrics screening questionnaire, and those who met inclusion criteria were emailed about their availability to participate in a focus group. Overall, 21 TGD students participated, 57% of whom were undergraduate (n = 12); 67% were aged 18–25 (n = 14); 48% identified as queer (n = 10); and 67% white (n = 14). As the TGD community at our institution is small, we report demographics such as age and ethnoracial identity in aggregate and only associate gender, year, and focus group, as identity markers with direct quotes. While this limits our ability to discuss identity more intersectionally to contextualize theme development and participants’ experiences, this was crucial to ensure participant confidentiality. Students received a $35 electronic gift card for participating.

Data Collection

Focus Groups

Five synchronous Zoom focus groups were conducted between November 2020 and February 2021 by (RG and AB). We stratified focus groups to elucidate the differing experiences of undergraduate and graduate students, and of BIPOC and white students. They were structured as follows: group 1, white undergraduates; group 2, white graduate students; group 3 white and BIPOC undergraduates; group 4, white and BIPOC graduate students; and group 5 BIPOC undergraduate students.

Each 90-min focus group followed a semistructured facilitation guide. Facilitators aimed to be transparent and build trust with students by disclosing their professional backgrounds, gender, sexual orientation, and race. Then, facilitators introduced participants to the topic of campus SVPR, discussed ground rules for participation, and asked a series of questions about SV (1) prevention (e.g., “Think about a time since you started at [university], when you experienced SV prevention services in any form. Describe what they were like, as best you can”), (2) response (e.g., “When I use the words – campus SV response – what services come to mind?”), and (3) service gaps (e.g., “What do you see as some of the unmet needs related to SVPR for TGD students on campus?”). Facilitators asked follow-up questions to prompt detail or specific examples. After each group, team members memoed summarizing their impressions and themes observed in the group's discussion. Focus groups were audio recorded through Zoom, and transcripts generated by the software's automated transcription feature were checked and corrected. We conducted an anonymous member checking survey (n = 17; compensation $25) to verify that participants’ perspectives were reflected in our preliminary findings.

Data Analysis

After our initial descriptive analysis to provide a report of recommendations to the university (see Gartner et al., 2022), it became apparent that many of the issues identified by participants were related to systems beyond our university. Further, institutional betrayal, or the ways in which harmful, unresponsive, or negligent systems and practices intended to respond to trauma can exacerbate the trauma of the original experience, particularly when related to experiences of people with minoritized identities (Smith & Freyd, 2014), was common across groups. We returned to the data from a critical and inductive stance to examine the connections between participants' stories, history, and marginalizing oppressive social institutions could contribute to their distrust of the university (Padgett, 2017). As social work researchers who recognize how systems of power function to maintain inequality and are committed to the healing of TGD communities, it was important to apply a critical lens to examine how systems of power shaped our participants’ experiences of campus systems to prevent and respond to SV, and how their perspectives could illuminate a path forward.

Our analytic process is best reflected by thematic analysis as developed by Braun and Clarke (2006, 2022), which consists of six steps: (1) becoming familiar with the data through reading and rereading transcripts, (2) coding by developing labels that identify elements of the data which are relevant to the research questions, and grouping these codes into initial categories, (3) developing themes or broader patterns of meaning through examining codes and categories identified in step 2, (4) revising themes through reviewing data to investigate the accuracy of the themes and determine if the themes convincingly answer the research question, and continuing to refine themes, (5) defining themes by naming and developing a detailed explanation of each theme, and (6) writing up the analytic process and data that have been extracted and contextualizing findings in relation to the literature (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

To ensure accuracy and enhance trustworthiness, we discussed the analysis process in weekly meetings. Initial candidate themes were developed by (ES) and lists of illustrative quotes were compiled under each candidate theme in Microsoft Word to facilitate identification of redundancies and overlap. The PI (RG) reviewed these documents, and (ES and RG) further codeveloped themes through thematic mapping and identifying central organizing concepts (Braun & Clarke, 2013, 2015). We engaged observer triangulation, through eliciting feedback from a third team member (AB) who was more removed from this coding process, but very familiar with the data (i.e., facilitated focus groups, conducted previous analysis of this data set ). We also applied multiple theories to explain the data (theory triangulation), which ultimately led to our theoretical approach that wove together abolition feminism and critical trans politics.

Results

Several themes emerged from our analyses of focus groups and member checking. We focused on four themes and two subthemes. The first theme centered compliance with federal mandates in campus SVPR practices. Further, we explored how a compliance-centered approach erodes the effectiveness of such efforts with the subthemes (1a) the inadequacy of “black-and-white” processes for “gray area” experiences, and (1b) carceral approaches and the perpetuation of harm. Our second theme described our participants’ anticipation of discrimination from SV response services. Our third theme explored trans invisibility in SVPR. The final theme captures participants’ visions for future approaches to SVPR.

Centering Compliance and Eroding Effectiveness: “What if Someone Doesn’t Want That”

Participants were frustrated with the compliance-oriented approach to SVPR they experienced or observed. They perceived that the university's priority is to comply with Title IX guidelines and mandates to protect itself from liability rather than building an SVPR system that meets their needs. Discussing why some cases are not handled as seriously as others, Marci, an undergraduate from group 5 highlighted the role of liability, “They don't see [certain cases] as a liability issue because they're not gonna get in trouble, or necessarily get bad press…”

They also discussed the bind that they saw Title IX personnel face when trying to help students while working in a restrictive and underresourced system. When discussing their friends’ experiences with Title IX personnel, Jules, an undergraduate from group 1, stated,

They’re [Title IX staff] like, “I want to help you so badly, but I can only do this because that's all that the Title IX office lets me.” …The rough part of it is that even people who have good intentions and really want to help and wouldn’t want queer people to feel uncomfortable coming to Title IX, are like, “I can see that there are the structural issues that I am restricted by where I can’t help as much as I want to.”

Participants recognized how the barriers to support they faced after an SV experience were related to compliance-focused procedures that protect the university's interests instead of their well-being. Further exemplifying this experience, TGD students expressed fear that the inefficiencies of the resultant bureaucracy would leave them exposed as potential targets for further abuse. Clover, an undergraduate from group 1, described how the lengthy process from filing a report to receiving support could leave them vulnerable to harm. They said,

When you file a report…it's a bureaucratic process, it doesn’t happen quickly. So, you’re on campus with your assaulter who knows that you’ve gotten them in trouble. That's a dangerous situation to be in, without any protections. So…filing a report might put me in danger, so like…why would I do that?

Our participants viewed engaging with Title IX as increasing their exposure to harm and not as an avenue to access support.

Mandated reporting and the lack of trustworthy, confidential campus support was another issue for participants. Participants discussed the paucity of TGD-affirming campus personnel, which was compounded by the reality that even if they found personnel they could trust, they still risked losing control of their process. Hayden, an undergraduate from group 1 stated,

You have people who might just need a place to process their feelings, where they aren’t really granted that because what ends up happening is you say, “oh, this is what happened to me,” and now you’re suddenly thrust into the bureaucratic process of Title IX reporting, whether or not that is what you, as a survivor of assault, wants.

The university's responsible employee reporting requirements further isolated participants from resources because of fear of losing control over their SV story and support-seeking process if their experience was reported to Title IX against their wishes. This concern was exacerbated by deterrents to accessing the only confidential service available on campus, the counseling center, such as limited appointment times and few TGD-affirming staff.

Inadequacy of “Black-and-White” Processes for “Gray Area” Experiences

Participants emphasized how the university's “check box” approach to SV did not leave space for the complexities of their experiences. They felt the university relied on binary narratives of “perpetrators” and “victim/survivors” in building its SV processes. Moss, an undergraduate from group 3, explained that such systems do not accurately engage with the diverse SV experiences in their community. He stated, “A lot of [SV] exists in a very gray area, and so if the solutions themselves aren’t engaging with that reality, they’re not going to be helpful.” Participants described SV as complicated and frequently occurring within relationships and close-knit communities and thus defying binary narratives and corresponding services.

Participants expressed that carceral logic pervasive in the institution's binary view of “victims/survivors” in need of protection and “perpetrators” deserving punishment was potentially erosive to their communities. For instance, participants felt they had to make one of two choices: (1) collaborate with a system that subjects the person who harmed them to punitive action or (2) remain silent, without needed support, and with the fear that harm may continue. Hayden, an undergraduate from group 1, further elaborated on the limits of this paradigm and the ways that it made them disinclined to engage with university systems. They said,

The university is like, “Oh, well, this is our solution. If you get assaulted, then we can go through the proper channels, and everything will get solved.” All the people I know who went through Title IX didn’t reach a satisfying conclusion…it lowers your belief in the efficacy of these organizations. On top of that, if you don’t believe in it, are you going to speak up and go through this process that even limits your actions further?

Building SV infrastructure around dichotomous tropes simplifies the narrative for the institution at the expense of students’ agency. Fear of negative consequences and lack of control has the potential to isolate students who may be navigating multiple competing needs. While their safety was important, participants also spoke about the concerns that arose at the intersection of individual and community well-being. One student explained,

Queer and trans and anyone-who-isn’t-white perpetrators and survivors are dealing with different social structures and dynamics than white straights. There is a culture of ignoring SV within communities and friend groups in order to “keep peace.” (Anonymous, Member Checking Survey)

Participants recognized that binaries intrinsic to university systems to support survivors rendered them ineffective and inaccessible, at best, and harmful at worst. They described the ways in which their gender identities and sexualities, experiences of harm, and desire for repair did not fit institutional expectations for SV-related proceedings. This misalignment left them without resources that could benefit their healing or ensure their continued access to education.

Carceral Approaches and the Perpetuation of Harm

Participants explained that the ways that Title IX processes mirror the CLS made them feel unsafe engaging institutional resources for support after an assault. They articulated how systems in place led to unsatisfying or disappointing resolutions and even inflicted further trauma on those who report. Isaac, a graduate student from group 2, described how Title IX hearings, part of some students’ process, deter reporting. They said,

If you report [SV], you end up in a room with the perpetrator and they get alerted that they were reported. There was some language like, “and then you’re cross examined in front of—” Oh my GOD! So, you experienced this [SV], and then you’re stuck in a room with the person who you reported, and they know it's you. I don’t blame anyone who then is like, “I don’t want to report,” because the university is making it worse, exacerbating the trauma you just went through.

Isaac and others we spoke with were concerned that the current system made them less safe and could bring harm to them as individuals and to their communities. They expressed deep empathy for their peers who had to weigh getting support against additional trauma. Ezra, an undergraduate from group 1, described how they lacked faith in the Title IX system because they were unable to fathom that healing could result from carceral processes. They were frustrated that Title IX reporting is the primary solution offered by the university because it disregards that many survivors of SV want to avoid this type of proceeding. They stated,

A lot of the time [SV] comes from someone who you don’t necessarily want harm to come to, for whatever reason. A lot of the times it's going to be a significant other or someone you’re really close to…I mean, even if you feel like the situation is serious, you might not want to do that to someone who you care about.

Ezra spoke about how punitive systems did not bring resolutions that they were looking for. While they wanted access to support, they did not want their partners, friends, or community members to become embroiled in a punitive institutional response with potentially life-altering consequences. To their frustration, this response was all that they saw available within university systems. The one-size-fits-all carceral approach isolated participants who wanted a process that acknowledged SV's impact across the social ecology.

Expecting Discrimination from SV Response: “We’re Not Living in a Fantasy World”

Participants discussed how anticipating harm from university systems, such as academic programs, campus police, and student health and counseling services, deterred them from engaging university SVPR channels, even if they wanted resources. Participants felt that because the structure of SVPR was established through federal mandates, resources available to them could change on a political whim. As members of (a) minoritized group(s), they saw these systems as inherently discriminatory. As Khloe, a graduate student from group 4, stated, “relying on federal institutions that shift constantly to dictate policy leaves us constantly out…out to dry, basically.” Students expected to deal with their experiences of SV alone because they saw the ways in which trans exclusion functioned in political realms. The intersection of partisan politics and campus culture left students hopeless that policies like Title IX could be trustworthy.

In addition to their knowledge of the political underpinnings of harm, students’ personal and community discrimination histories contributed to fear of institutional harm. Jules, an undergraduate from group 1, described the university's disregard of TGD individuals’ routine experiences of discrimination in the systems meant to protect them explaining,

The university gives you the “we’re good allies and we’re great at prevention and we’re giving you the correct answer, in a perfect world,” but that is not what this world is. We’re not living in this fantasy world where you can be queer [and] go to the police and be taken seriously, or be queer and expect that whenever you have an issue with someone misgendering you or [experience] SV if you then speak on that people will be like, “I understand, you’re valid,” which is a huge issue that I think the university just doesn’t acknowledge at all.

The “perfect world” is that of their cis, straight, white peers for whom these systems were designed. Participants saw disconnection between the rhetoric of service accessibility and their lived experience. The few spaces of LGBTQIA+ support on campus did not represent their complex identities. As Leona from group 5 said, “Our experiences are not all shared. Just because we are all part of the alphabet mafia does not mean that we are…the same…We get bunched together so it's easier for heterosexual cisgender people to feel better.” Leona's reflection that the complexity of their identities are made invisible for the comfort of dominant groups illustrates a lack of awareness and care paid to the realities of intersectional experiences.

Students further expressed frustration that the university emphasized how things should work but not how they functioned in their lives. One of the most prominent examples of this disconnect was the portrayal of campus police. Participants problematized the university's portrayal of police as a viable resource after SV due to widespread discrimination against TGD people by law enforcement (James et al., 2019). They described how their distrust of campus systems was fueled by university messaging that refused to see police engagement as anything other than positive or neutral. This reliance on law enforcement rendered university support resources unsafe by association.

Invisibility in SVPR: “You Can’t Be a Survivor”

Participants described a prescriptive profile for an SV survivor in society, broadly, and on campus, specifically. They did not see themselves represented in media or campus conversations about SV, where cis women's experiences and vulnerabilities are centered to the exclusion of other frequently harmed groups. Matthew, a graduate student from group 4, described how the media's increasing coverage of cis women survivors as a part of the #MeToo movement, made him question whether his experiences were welcome in the anti-SV movement. He shared,

I saw this debate with the emergence of the #MeToo movement, whether trans men were included [or not] as people who are allowed to say, “me too.” So, with reporting, there's this element of hesitancy, as well. I get the message, “Oh, you can’t be a survivor, or you can’t have experienced that.”

For Matthew, this hegemonic narrative rendered his experiences invisible. He did not feel like the movement would welcome him or that services were meant for him.

Exclusion by omission was echoed by other participants who spoke about how cis-centric societal attitudes lead to a sense that TGD identities are illegitimate and do not belong in SVPR conversations and systems. A graduate student from group 4, Khloe, described how she felt that her experience of transition excluded her from SV supports. She stated,

We [trans people] get shut out twice because we’re shut out or included based on assigned gender at birth, but then through transitioning, we get taken back out of things. And that is true in so many spheres…so we just have to go off and do our own things—perpetually and forever.

Participants saw the dominant message that survivors are heterosexual cis women to mean that services are for that population. They felt caught in an in-between narrative due to their assigned sex and their identity. Khloe alluded to how currently and historically TGD people support one another in the absence of reliable systems to care for their safety and well-being.

Visions for the Future

Participants discussed the responsibility they felt to repair the university systems that harm them and their community so future TGD students would not have the same experiences. They saw a future in which TGD students were less isolated and no longer routinely victimized. Isaac, a graduate student in group 2, explained,

We’re not doing this work for ourselves. We’re doing this work for the students four generations from now. Nothing is going to get done in my four years here. Institutions don’t change that quickly. But if my trans grandkid can come here and not [feel like] the first trans person the school has ever seen, I’ve done my work.

Moving away from the prevalent narrative of top-down quick fixes, Isaac described a long-term, TGD-led approach to the work to repair campus culture. Leona, an undergraduate from group 5 went further to describe how TGD students could not rely on the broader LGBTQ+ community's organizing. She stated, “how is it that within the same community we face the exact same amount of hatred and misunderstanding… we [trans people] still have to keep fighting just to be acknowledged.” Leona and Isaac highlight a need for TGD-centered and led movements.

A major starting place to healing campus climate brought forth by participants was shifting the focus of prevention efforts from stopping victimization to changing systems that promote violence. Participants envisioned a world in which “victims/survivors” and “perpetrators” could heal in the aftermath of SV and receive resources to end cycles of violence. Khloe, a graduate student from group 4, expressed concern that the current system does not address SV causes and pointed to U.S. culture's obsession with rooting out the “bad apples” while ignoring the cultural and institutional norms and practices that perpetuate SV. She stated,

If [perpetrators] were engaged and made aware of root causes systemically… and they could get the help THEY need, I think we would have better outcomes, but our entire society is geared towards just… “When we DO punish somebody, we punish them real good.” And it doesn't…do anything.

Participants wanted to move beyond deterrence through retribution to think comprehensively about education, engaging those who do harm, and shifting cultural norms. Rey, an undergraduate from group 4, further questioned Title IX's lack of resources for those who do harm. They noted that punishment is not the same as healing and saw opportunities for individual and community healing as integral to change. They said,

What resources could there be for perpetrators beyond punishment? Part of the consequences of one's actions is understanding how it affects other people. There's not enough discussion about that. It's always about what happens after for survivors. What happens after for perpetrators and how do we make sure that it doesn't happen again? What do perpetrators of violence need to not be violent? There needs to be something in place for that.

Rey expressed a desire for transformative approaches to SV response. They wanted resources for “perpetrators,” approaches that assessed and responded to community impact, and examination of systemic factors enabling violence. Participants did not see punishment benefiting their communities and wanted to shift the focus of SVPR to community accountability and cultural change. As Marci, an undergraduate student from group 5, explained, “I feel like accountability never has to be punitive… it can be transformational.” Participants expressed a vision for the future that was less about implementing additional rules and more about shifting campus SV perspectives to center accessibility, accountability, compassion, and cultural change.

Discussion

Students felt that university approaches to SVPR prioritized shielding the university from liability over providing students with effective support. They were critical of the university's punishment-oriented approach to SVPR that misaligned with their values and described feeling betrayed by the university. Transgender and gender diverse students were unnerved by the prospect of a hearing, afraid to have police involved, and often unwilling to expose themselves and/or their community to the potential harm that could result from a lengthy bureaucratic process. The lack of SV-specific confidential reporting options and the university's emphasis on Title IX reporting left TGD students vulnerable to experiencing additional injury while seeking support. By centering liability and compliance, the university has modeled its interventions to address SV after the CLS's approach. This process engages binary conceptions of harm with clear distinctions between “victim” and “perpetrator” and obscures the connection between marginalization and SV by assuming that the threat or enactment of punishment will deter the perpetration of harm.

Our participants described a desired future in which university SVPR does not blame SV on individual “perpetrators” and facilitates opportunities for healing rather than punishment. In this future, campuses move away from the legacy of carceral feminism toward an intersectional understanding of the needs of those impacted by campus SV. Students’ future vision reflected transformative justice (TJ) principles. TJ is an approach to addressing harm which aims to transform the conditions where the injustice was created (Collins, 2016; Generation Five, 2007; Méndez, 2020). TJ avoids relying on institutions which further traumatize survivors and responds to community desire to address the roots of harms they experience (Méndez, 2020). TJ is intertwined with abolition feminism and critical trans politics, as they both describe a need to create systems of accountability and healing outside of the CLS (Davis et al., 2022; Spade, 2015). The CLS maintains oppressive power relations that enact violence on TGD people and BIPOC communities. Thus, we must go beyond advocating for inclusion in legal and administrative systems to develop approaches to transform the conditions in which violence occurs (Davis et al., 2022; Spade, 2015). Next, we outline how TGD students’ desires and experiences regarding campus SV response align with the Generation Five's (2007) TJ principles, and how these principles could guide more responsive university SVPR.

Shifting Power

TJ seeks to build shared power based on equity, cooperation, and self-determination (Generation Five, 2007). Title IX engages a series of interrelated processes that reduce students, advocates, and other professional members of campus’ agency. Mandatory reporting, by “responsible employees,” considered by most universities to be all or most faculty and staff (Holland et al., 2018), was intended to foster support-seeking and increase institutional accountability. However, it has largely had the opposite effect (Newins et al., 2018). Our participants vocalized concerns about confiding in faculty or staff and becoming entangled in Title IX processes when all they wanted was a listening ear. Faculty and staff have also voiced concerns about mandated reporting, citing fears of reducing student autonomy, retraumatizing students, and dissuading students from seeking support (Koon-Magnin & Mancini, 2023). Lack of confidential advocates contributed to students’ concerns of becoming powerless in the help-seeking process. Changes to Title IX have caused advocates to also lose agency in their role, as they describe tensions between policy mandates and their desire to meet students’ needs (Brubaker & Keegan, 2019). Engaging Title IX's check-box approach left participants with concerns for their agency and that of the person who harmed them (Collins, 2016). Although there is little research about those who cause harm through SV (Linder et al., 2020), data suggest that most people experience SV from someone they know (Peterson et al., 2021; Sinozich & Langton, 2014). Participants wanted to avoid the life-altering consequences that a partner, friend, or community member could face and thus felt optionless when the only remedies offered were punitive. While confidential advocates are a bare minimum to addressing the safety concerns participants detailed, participants also desired community-centered healing that brings those harmed and those who did harm together to work toward meaningful change.

Safety and Accountability

TJ views safety through interdependent lenses that align with students’ concerns. Survivors must be safe from immediate violence and future threats, communities must foster norms that challenge violence and oppression, and cross-community alliances are needed for mutual support (Generation Five, 2007). TJ's approach to safety can differ from carceral approaches, as physical separation is not the only option; rather “survivor's” and community needs are centered (Kim, 2011). Transgender and gender diverse students felt Title IX was unsafe due to lengthy investigative processes and law enforcement involvement. Participants’ concerns mirrored those of TGD survivors off campus, where law enforcement's discrimination toward TGD people reporting SV (Matsuzaka & Koch, 2019) leads to service avoidance (Jordan et al., 2020).

TJ understands accountability as both an element of justice and a tool for transformation (Generation Five, 2007). Participants wanted resources aimed at ending patterns of violent behavior rather than isolating those who cause harm. They described Title IX processes as ill-suited to address situations when there is not a clear “victim” or “perpetrator,” such as in relationships in which both partners cause harm. In such situations, meaningful accountability rather than punishment could foster healthier relationships. They saw approaches that prioritized resources for survivors, while neglecting the healing of those who cause harm as incomplete.

Liberation and Honoring Diversity

TJ works to “liberate relationships, communities, and society” from “intergenerational legacies of violence and colonization” through addressing “multiple, intersecting forms of intimate, community, and state violence” (Generation Five, 2007, p. 27). Students advocated intersectional approaches for liberation from legacies of transphobia, racism, ableism, and homophobia that contribute to SV. Students felt the limits of a compliance-oriented approach, as the checklists that emerge from this strategy encourage meeting minimum standards rather than community engagement for structural changes needed for inclusion (Jordan et al., 2020). Participants also saw a need for liberation from the racialized, classed, hetero- and cis-centric narratives of who can be a “survivor,” which assumes a cis-male “perpetrator” and a cis-female “victim” (Collins, 2016). They named #MeToo's influence on conversations about campus SV. Despite its origins as a campaign to recognize SV among women of color, #MeToo ultimately perpetuated the stereotype of a white, upper class, cis woman as the credible “survivor” (Jones, 2018), invisibilizing communities disproportionately impacted by SV (Hsu, 2019). Our participants were also frustrated by assumptions that their needs would be addressed by campus LGBTQ+ programming, as they experienced these spaces as dominantly white and cisgender, reflecting need for spaces that can hold TGD students’ experiences of intersecting oppressions.

Sustainability and Collective Action

In alignment with TJ, participants recognized that fundamentally shifting the university's approach to SV would take time and investment. They were motivated to do this work for future generations and saw that it could not be completed during their time on campus. They also recognized that they alone could not create sustainable change, and needed collaboration with cis, heterosexual students and other student groups (e.g., religious).

Implementing TJ on Campus

Our participants did not find campus SV resources accessible, largely due to the carceral logic underpinning their function. They envisioned an accessible campus SVPR system which integrated TGD and other minoritized students into its development and function. As social workers and members of campus communities, we see how the movement toward systems change and community healing envisioned by participants is subject to the pitfalls that faced the feminist antiviolence movement (Kim, 2020). We encourage those in campus SVPR to look to decentralized, community-led TJ organizations to build locally relevant ways to address SV and seek transformative accountability (Kim, 2020). It is feminist social workers’ role as researchers, educators, and practitioners to support student movements without requiring them to build institutional entanglements and to provide continuity for an inherently transient population. Feminist social workers must learn the limits of existing campus SVPR systems for meeting TGD students’ needs so that we can (1) advocate for TGD students within SVPR systems and resist the perpetuation of cis-centric narratives and false dichotomies of who experiences and causes harm, and (2) support students’ agency through transparent recognition of the system's limits rather than presenting “official” avenues as the only option for accountability and repair.

TJ's explicit rejection of engagement with the state or institutions may seem incompatible with university settings and unsustainable; however, this may be a strength for students and advocates looking to bypass the bureaucracy that results in restorative justice's carceral entanglements on campuses (James & Hetzel-Riggin, 2022). TJ organizations’ fleeting nature can function to resist co-optation by the state or nonprofit industrial complex (Kim, 2020). TJ organizations creatively build collective power and capacity without institutional reliance. For example, building support networks through “pods” of people with preexisting relationships and shared visions of mutual accountability (Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective, n.d.) allows TJ practices to exist beyond formal organizational structures (Kim, 2020). In addition, online community and education platforms (e.g., Spring Up) may be able to provide the training and continuity needed while accounting for students’ time constraints (Spring Up, n.d.).

Limitations

This project grew out of research supported the university to provide recommendations to reform existing SV supports for TGD students. Thus, our facilitation guide broadly centered participants’ perspectives about campus SVPR infrastructure and practices, rather than Title IX or carceral systems. Intentionally asking about experiences of carceral systems related to SV may have added further nuance and depth to our findings; however, that these themes emerged without being directly queried speaks to their centrality to TGD student experience. Additionally, we began our study shortly prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, thus much of the recruitment and data collection were conducted virtually when students were off campus. This temporarily truncated the relationships that the PI had built with on-campus student groups and limited student collaboration throughout the research process. While this posed a challenge, the virtual format allowed for diverse perspectives to come together in a virtual space that may not have happened in-person. Additionally, the campus’ homogeneity made recruitment challenging and situated our purposive sample in a largely white, cisgender, and heterosexual context. Our study team discussed this regularly, to reflect on sample composition and comprise groups with attention to supporting points of connection for BIPOC students.

Conclusion

Universities build students’ toolboxes for social and societal engagement and are thus ideal points for intervention as we seek to reduce our reliance on punitive models that disproportionately harm marginalized communities. Sustaining TJ within heavily bureaucratic university systems presents challenges; however, we see great potential for TJ histories and infrastructures to guide student-led campus SVPR. By modeling responses to SV on the CLS, we further entrench the carceral logic that remains largely unexamined in our society, socializing students into a culture in which punishment is seen as the only legitimate approach to healing from violence. The integration of TJ informed processes into campus SVPR can harness principles of abolition feminism and critical trans politics to support students in developing new perspectives on healing and repair in the aftermath of SV.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the University of Pittsburgh, (grant number Pitt Seed: Prevention of Sexual Misconduct).

ORCID iDs

Rachel E. Gartner

Meg Panichelli

Notes

Author Biographies

Rachel E. Gartner, PhD, MSW, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. Her research investigates the role of violence and discrimination across individual, interpersonal, and systemic factors with the goal of preventing victimization and improving health outcomes for minoritized populations.

Emil K. Smith, MSW, LCSW is a doctoral candidate at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work. Their research focuses on health equity for transgender and gender diverse populations, with an emphasis on engaging community perspectives to improve the healthcare experiences of trans adults with eating disorders.

Meg Panichelli, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor in the Undergraduate Department of Social Work, West Chester University of PA. Her teaching and research are grounded in feminist approaches to social work, namely those that incorporate anti-carceral, queer, and intersectional theories of oppression.

Adrian J. Ballard, PhD, LCSW, is an Assistant Professor in the Salisbury University School of Social Work. His scholarship centers on the role sexual socialization plays in psychosocial functioning and social behavior, with a particular interest in the manifestation of sexual harm.

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