Like many – and I suspect most – trans people I’ve experienced transphobic abuse, both online and in the real world. And like many trans people I didn’t report the real-world stuff to the police. I gave up on reporting online abuse to social networks years ago.

A new survey by anti-violence charity GALOP suggests I’m not alone.

Just one in seven trans people who experienced a transphobic attack – be it physical, verbal, sexual or online – reported it to the police.

Seventy per cent said this was because they felt that the police could not help them. A third said they expected the police to be transphobic, while another third said they experienced too many transphobic incidents to be able to report them all.

This simply shouldn’t happen in a civilised society:

One trans person who did report a transphobic incident to the police said: “One officer said I left myself open to being abused because I ‘chose to be different’.

“Misgendering throughout the interview then told that the physical assault, death threats and threats of further violence against me weren’t strong enough to do anything about and maybe I should ‘go home, make a cup of tea, and dress “normally”‘.”