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 Brooks, 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 Brooks, 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."

The Special Commission of Inquiry into LGBTIQ hate crimes heard from ACON, a peak LGBTQI+ body, which presented a paper that recorded 88 gay or trans hate murders between 1970 and 2000.

Teddy Cook, ACON's director for community health, said a 2019 transgender mental health survey by La Trobe University found 65 per cent of respondents had suicidal ideations.

"It is a huge increase compared to our cisgender peers ... we've experienced a dramatic increase in demand for our mental health services," he 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.