Avon and Somerset Constabulary recorded more than 150 transgender hate crime offences in the year to March, recent figures show.

Ahead of Transgender Day of Remembrance on November 20, which remembers those who lost their lives to anti-transgender violence and hate, a charity supporting adults from the trans community warned some hate crimes may still go unreported.

Transgender hate crime designates criminal offences motivated by hostility or prejudice toward a person's transgender identity, whether it is perceived or actual.

Statistics from the Home Office show Avon and Somerset Constabulary recorded 177 transgender hate crime offences in the year to March, marking a 1% decrease on 179 the previous year.

Meanwhile, police forces across England and Wales recorded 4,120 transgender hate crime offences last year.

Excluding the Met Police – which changed its crime recording system – the number of transgender hate crime offences stood at 3,809 in the year to March, down 11% from 4,260 the year prior.

This came despite police-recorded hate crimes rising for the first time in three years in England and Wales, with increases in both racially and religiously motivated offences.

Excluding the Met Police, police forces across the two nations logged 82,490 race hate crimes in the year to March – a 6% increase on the previous year. Some 7,164 religiously motivated hate crimes were also recorded – up 3% on the year before and the highest annual total on record.

This included 3,987 race hate crime offences and 357 religious hate crimes in Avon and Somerset.

Maxine Heron, online communications officer at Not A Phase, said: "The continued documentation on hate crimes against the trans community is essential.

"We hope any decrease in reported hate crimes is the start of a bigger drop in hate crimes against our community.

"However, we should not become complacent – we should strive for a future in which zero trans people are harmed simply for existing as who they are alongside the rest of society.

"The continued hate crimes against our community are a symptom of the long standing political and media smear campaign against all trans people, and in particular trans women."

She warned "it is very possible that a portion of hate crimes against trans people go unreported" and called for more "respect, kindness, and patience" towards minorities.

"We must collectively facilitate a society which shows the majority of society how to treat minorities – with the respect, kindness, and patience each of us deserve simply for doing the best that we can from one day to the next," she said.

"We are relieved that this report shows fewer trans people endured hate crimes during this time period, but we must collectively be part of the change in building a future where each of us can exist in society peacefully with the safety we all unequivocally deserve."