Advocates say they are facing a new frontier of hate crimes against the marginalised transgender community.
Ahead of Sydney's WorldPride Human Rights Conference, which starts today and runs until Friday, transgender support groups say negative media attention in election campaigns adds to feelings of depression in young trans people.
Eloise Brook, a communications manager for outreach group The Gender Centre, said misinformation and online commentary have compounded hatred of trans and gender-diverse communities.
"I would say that where we currently face the biggest challenge is pushing back against misinformation," she said.
"We have been through a hellish couple of years, especially with the federal election, but also with some of the attempts to make policy changes through the New South Wales parliament."
Ms Brook, an academic in public health, said each day trans youth are "bombarded" with hatred online, impacting their mental health.
"A transgender person doesn't have a mental health condition on their own," she said.
"But the wear and tear caused by the discrimination and negativity has a significant effect.
"At the national level, trans people represent a very small section of the wider community, and yet we are represented in the media on a daily basis, multiple outlets globally with various famous people's opinions about the community."
Two 2018 reports — one by NSW Police Strike Force Parrabell and another by peak LGBTQI+ body ACON — shone a light on potential anti-gay killings between 1976 and 2000 in NSW.
The reports reviewed some 88 deaths over that period that may have involved gay hate, anti-gay bias or sexuality or gender bias, and helped establish the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes.
A 2019 transgender mental health survey by La Trobe University found about 60 per cent of respondents had suicidal ideations in the previous 12 months.
"It is a huge increase compared to our cisgender peers ... we've experienced a dramatic increase in demand for our mental health services," Teddy Cook, ACON's director for community health, said.
"Many inquiries are from extremely distressed trans people."
Mr Cook said he farewelled five transgender friends who died by suicide in 2022.
"In New South Wales, we are losing trans people in an epidemic of suicide, and I know we can do better than that as a society."
Groups created against the marriage equality referendum have shifted their ideology to target trans people online, Mr Cook said.
"We've been working really closely with the e-Safety commissioner ... we've had situations of trans people being heavily targeted online, being doxxed; it absolutely happens out in the world as well.
"But living a trans life is not an inherently sad one; it is beautiful and hopeful."
In the 2016 Census, more than 10,000 Australians marked or commented "other" when answering questions on sex and gender.
This grew to 43,220 in the 2021 Census, with three in five respondents writing in a gender identity like agender, demiboy, gender fluid, non-binary, or transwoman.
But the Australian Bureau of Statistics said it was almost impossible to accurately record the non-binary, gender-diverse or trans population by stats alone.
Trans murders began to be documented in a global database in 2009 by advocacy group Trans Gender Europe (TGEU).
In 2022, TGEU found many trans-hate crimes continued to go unreported on a local level and received little to no attention when they were reported.
Ms Brook said that is because many victims of crime felt they would be punished if they spoke up.
"The community is just bunkering down to try to get by. It's yet another thing that they've experienced ... that they're not reporting; it's not being captured in a meaningful way."
This lack of data makes it hard for groups like The Gender Centre to get the resources to those who need it most.
"This is one of the things that often gets thrown about ... the community making a lot of noise," Ms Brook said.
"In reality, I think most of the conversations I'm hearing about is day-to-day, how do we survive? How do we get by?
"How do we make sure that we are able to access all the health care that is appropriate for us? It is more about moving forward."
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Editor's note March 21, 2023: This story has been updated to include additional context and information about two reports on potential gay-hate killings in NSW, one by ACON and another by NSW Police's Strike Force Parrabell.
