About 1.6 million people in the United States are transgender, and 43 percent of them are young adults or teenagers, according to a new report that provides the most recent national estimate of this population.
The analysis, based on government health surveys conducted between 2017 and 2020, estimates that 1.4% of youth aged 13 to 17 and 1.3% of young adults aged 18 to 24 are transgender, compared with about 0.5% of all adults. .
Those numbers represent a dramatic increase in young people: The estimated number of transgender people aged 13 to 25 nearly doubled compared with the researchers’ previous report, published in 2017. , although the reports use different methods.
The data indicate a marked generational shift. Young people increasingly have the language and social acceptance to explore their gender identity, experts say, while older adults may feel more constrained. But the numbers, which vary widely from state to state, also raise questions about possible cultural dynamics, such as the role of peer influence or the political environment of the community.
“It is appropriate to explore all aspects of their identity,” said Dr Angela Goepferd, medical director of the Sexual Health Program at Children’s Hospital of Minnesota, who was not involved in the new analysis. Developmentally appropriate for teenagers – that’s what teenagers do. “And, in terms of generations, gender has become a part of someone’s identity that is more socially acceptable to discover.”
Goepferd, who is not a binary, notes that many teenagers will not necessarily want or need drugs or surgery to transition to the other sex, as is typical of older generations.
The surveys, created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did not ask younger teens about non-binary or other gender identity, which has also been on the rise in recent years. But nearly a quarter of adults in surveys who said they were transgender identified as “gender-incongruent,” meaning they did not identify as transgender male or female.
“We as culturalists need only rely on the fact that there is gender diversity among us,” says Dr. Goepferd. “And that doesn’t mean we need to treat it medically in all cases, but it does mean that we as a society need to make space for that.”
The new data was analyzed by researchers at the Williams Institute, a research center at the University of California, Los Angeles law school that generates highly regarded reports on demographics, behavior, and relationships policy of the LGBTQ community in the United States.
Research shows that adolescents make up a disproportionately large proportion of the transgender population. While younger teens make up only 7.6% of the total US population, they make up about 18% of transgender people. Likewise, 18-24 year olds make up 11% of the total population but 24% of the transgender population.
Older adults make up a disproportionately small percentage: Despite 62 percent of the total population, only 47 percent are transgender between 25 and 64. And while 20 percent of Americans are over 65, that age group makes up just 10 % of total transgender people nationwide.
The Williams Institute used data from two national sources: the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Monitoring System, which is administered nationally for adults, and the Adolescent Risk Behavior Survey, available at secondary schools. The surveys, conducted by phone or in person, collect demographic data as well as a variety of health and behavioral information, such as smoking habits, HIV status, nutrition and do exercise.
Beginning in 2017, the high school survey included an optional question asking students if they were transgender. Between 2017 and 2020, 15 states included this question in their high school surveys, while 41 states included the adult question at least once during that period.
The Williams Institute used this data, along with statistical modeling of demographic and geographic variables, to produce an estimate of the nation’s transgender population.
“It’s important to know that transgender people live everywhere in the United States, and transgender people are part of it,” said Jody Herman, senior scholar of public policy at the Williams Institute and lead author. communities across the country. of reports. “We use the best data available, but we always need better and better data.”
The US Census Bureau began questioning sexual orientation and gender identity only last year, part of a new data collection effort. And even the national suicide statistics – important in the study of this vulnerable population – do not contain information about sex or gender identity.
“No one knows how many transgender people or how many gay or bisexual people have died by suicide in the past year,” Amit Paley, head of Project Trevor, a suicide prevention group, recently announced. its own report based on social networks, said. Media polls show that young LGBTQ people have high rates of mental health problems and suicidal thoughts.
“That data doesn’t exist because it’s not collected by the government in death records,” Mr Paley said. “That’s something that we’re working to try to change.”
When their previous report was published in 2017, the Williams Institute researchers did not have actual survey data for young adolescents, instead using statistical modeling to extrapolate based on on adult data. At the time, they estimated there were 150,000 transgender teenagers in the country, or 0.7% of teenagers.
With the inclusion of new high school survey data added in 2017, that estimate has now doubled to 300,000.
It’s not clear whether that spike reflects an inaccuracy in previous estimates, the actual increase in transgender youth numbers, or both.
“It’s a bewildering question as to why this is happening,” said Dr Herman.
The racial makeup of transgender adults and transgender adolescents is roughly the same. About half of both groups were Caucasian, slightly less than the relative number of whites in the general population, and a disproportionately large number in each group identified as Latino. pure.
The data also shows the distribution of transgender people by state. New York has the largest estimated transgender teen population, with 3%, while Wyoming has the lowest, 0.6%. Transgender adults show a narrower range, with 0.9% of adults identifying as transgender in North Carolina and 0.2% in Missouri.
The teen numbers are based on surveys collected in 15 states: Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont and Wisconsin. The researchers then use that survey data to create a model of how individual status and characteristics affect the probability of being transgender. Using that model, along with demographic data from the census, they came up with estimates for another 35 states and Washington, D.C.
Experts who work with transgender youth agree that certain social factors will play an important role in their identity, just as it was decades ago when gay and lesbian people were gay and lesbian. Femininity first appeared in large numbers.
“It signifies a new generation of confidence in a new generation of accurate gender identity,” said Phillip Hammack, professor of psychology and director of the Gender and Sexual Diversity Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. their real. “I think we saw something very similar – we just might not have the exact numbers to back it up – as we saw more likelihood of labeling ourselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual in the 90s”.
Recent Gallup poll data also analyzed by the Williams Institute shows that young adults also make up a disproportionately large share of the total LGBTQ population in the United States, which also varies from state to state. .
Social media today has been a significant catalyst for adolescents to question their gender identity.
“I think a big part of it is definitely the internet,” said Indigo Giles, a 20-year-old college student in Austin who has protested against the state of Texas investigating the parental abuse of transgender children.
Mx. Giles said they realized they were non-binary after finding a community of like-minded people on Tumblr. “People who may have these feelings for a long time but have no words to say to them may eventually find other people feeling the same way,” they say.
And conversely, it may be much harder for older people to discover their gender identity later on.
Dr Hammack describes how one person he interviewed talked about how difficult it was to be extraordinary at the age of fifty because “we looked around and everyone was so young”. And others who identify as male or female lesbians, he said, have told him, “If I were that young, I would probably have gone that route, but it’s not readily available.” .”
Goepferd, of Minnesota Children’s Hospital, points to another possible reason for the lower proportion of older transgender people: Lower access to health care, coupled with rates of violence and suicide high, transgender people are more likely to die at a younger age. .
“The hard reality is that we don’t have transgender seniors because they didn’t survive,” they said.
