“Working in a brothel is safer and then the facts are transwomen of colour are excluded from those establishments, so we are forced to work privately. Hence, we’re more likely to experience sexual violence in our work.” - Sasha

“they would rather I kill myself and spare myself a lifetime of pain than to go through and live as a monster for the rest of my life and be shunned by society… they also told me that if I was a woman I'd be the ugliest woman in the world and other things along those lines, basically just invalidating me and insulting me” - Emma

Our survey found: self-support was the primary mode of coping with sexual harassment or assault, with self-support highest in CALD trans women. CALD trans women were more likely to report no support compared to other groups of women.

being gender or sexuality diverse is strongly taboo in many CALD communities (Ussher, Perz, Metusela, Hawkey, Morrow, Narchal, & Estoesta, 2017). As a result, individuals from CALD backgrounds may experience exclusion or violence from their family or from their community, during or following gender transitioning (Singh, et al., 2011).

This notion of “acceptance” of sexual violence in childhood, even though it was acknowledged to be “horrible”, may have influenced women’s experience of sexual assault in intimate relationships in adult life, a common experience of many of our interviewees. This may be one factor contributing to higher rates of violence reported by trans women of colour in previous research (James, 2016; Scheim, et al., 2013).