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About 1.6 million people in the United States are transgender, and 43 percent of them are young adults or teenagers. a new report to provide the latest national estimates of this population.
Analysis, based on government health surveys conducted from 2017 to 2020, estimates that 1.4 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are transgender, compared to about 0.5 percent of all adults. .
These numbers revealed a significant increase among younger people: the estimate of transgender people aged 13 to 25 has nearly doubled since the researchers’ study. previous reportIt was published in 2017, but reports used different methods.
The data point to a sharp generational change. Experts said that while young people increasingly have language and social acceptance to explore their gender identities, older adults may feel more constrained. But the figures, which vary widely from state to state, also raise questions about possible cultural factors, such as the role of peer influence or the political climate of the community.
D., medical director of the Minnesota Children’s Hospital Gender Health Program, who was not involved in the new analysis. “It’s developmentally appropriate for teens to explore all aspects of their identity – that’s what teens do,” said Angela Goepferd. “And over the generations, gender has become a more socially acceptable part of exploring one’s identity.”
The non-binary Dr. Goepferd noted that many young people will not want or need medication or surgery to switch to another gender, as they do in older generations.
In surveys created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, young teens were not asked about their non-binary or other gender identity, which has increased in recent years. But about a quarter of adults in surveys who said they were transgender identified as “gender nonconforming,” meaning they did not identify as a transgender man or woman.
Dr. “As a culture, we just have to stand up to the fact that there is gender diversity among us,” Goepferd said. “And that doesn’t mean we have to treat it medically in every case, but it does mean we have to make room for it as a society.”
The new data were analyzed by researchers at the Williams Institute, a research center at the University of California, Los Angeles law school that has produced highly respected reports on the demographics, behavior, and policy concerns of LGBTQ populations in the United States.
The study found that young people make up a disproportionately large portion of the transgender population. Younger youth made up just 7.6 percent of the total U.S. population, compared to roughly 18 percent of transgender people. Likewise, 18- to 24-year-olds make up 11 percent of the total population, but 24 percent of the trans population.
Older adults accounted for a disproportionately small share: Only 47 percent of transgender people were between 25 and 64, despite 62 percent of the total population. And while 20 percent of Americans are over 65, this age group only makes up 10 percent of the total population. transgender people across the country.
The Williams Institute used data from two national sources: the CDC’s nationwide Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for adults and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey delivered in high schools. Surveys, conducted over the phone or in person, collect demographic information as well as data on a variety of medical and behavioral information such as smoking habits, HIV status, nutrition and exercise.
Starting in 2017, the high school survey included an optional question asking if the student was transgender. From 2017 to 2020, 15 states included this question in high school surveys, while 41 states included this question for adults at least once during that time period.
The Williams Institute used this data, along with statistical modeling of demographic and geographic variables, to arrive at estimates of the nationwide transgender population.
“It’s important to know that trans people live all over the United States and that trans people are part of communities across the country,” said Jody Herman, senior public policy expert and lead author at the Williams Institute. “We’re using the best data available, but we always need more and better data,” the report said.
this US Census Bureau She started asking questions about sexual orientation and gender identity only last year as part of a new data collection effort. And even national suicide statistics—important in the study of this vulnerable population—do not include information on sexuality or gender identity.
“No one knows how many trans, gay or bisexual people died from suicide in the last year,” said Amit Paley, president of the suicide prevention group The Trevor Project. own report Based on a social media survey, it showed a high rate of young LGBTQ individuals with mental health problems and suicidal thoughts.
“These data are not available because they were not collected by the government in the death registry,” said Mr Paley. “This is something we’re trying to change.”
When Williams Institute researchers’ previous reports were published in 2017, they didn’t have actual survey data for younger teens, but instead used statistical modeling to make predictions based on adult data. At the time, they estimated there were 150,000 trans youth, or roughly 0.7 percent of young people, in the country.
With the inclusion of new high school survey data added in 2017, that estimate has now doubled to 300,000.
It is not clear whether this jump reflects inaccuracies in the previous estimate, a real increase in the number of transgender adolescents, or both.
Dr. “That’s the puzzling question of why these things happen,” Herman said.
The racial makeup of transgender adults and transgender youth was roughly the same. About half of both groups were white, slightly less than the relative number of white people in the general population, and a disproportionately large proportion of each group identified as Latino.
The data also shows the distribution of trans people by state. New York has the largest population of transgender youth at 3 percent, while Wyoming has the lowest at 0.6 percent. Transgender adults showed a narrower range; 0.9 percent of adults identified as transgender in North Carolina and 0.2 percent in Missouri.
Adolescent numbers were 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 used this survey data to create a model for how state and individual characteristics affect the likelihood of being transgender. Using this model, along with demographic data from the census, they made estimates for 35 other states and Washington, DC.
Experts working with transgender youth agreed that certain social factors would unquestionably play a role in their identity, just as they did decades ago when gays and lesbians first appeared in large numbers.
“This means new confidence among the new generation to be authentic in their sexual identity,” said Phillip Hammack, professor of psychology and director of the Laboratory for Sexual and Gender Diversity at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “I think we saw something very similar — as we saw more visibility in the nineties about labeling oneself as gay, lesbian, bisexual — maybe we just didn’t have the hard numbers to back it up.”
End Gallup polling data Also analyzed by the Williams Institute, it shows that young adults make up a disproportionately large portion of the total LGBTQ population in the United States, which similarly varies from state to state.
Social media has been a major catalyst for youth today questioning their gender identity.
“I think a big part of that is definitely the internet,” said Indigo Giles, a 20-year-old college student in Austin.
max. Giles said they realized they weren’t a duo after finding a community of like-minded people on Tumblr. “Maybe people who have had these feelings for a long time but don’t have the words to say to them can finally see others who feel the same way, in such an easily accessible way,” they said.
And conversely, it can be much more difficult for older people to discover their gender identity later in life.
Dr. Hammack described one person she interviewed who talked about how difficult it was to come out as a non-binary person in her fifties, because “we look around and everyone is so young.” Others who describe themselves as masculine or butcher’s lesbians told her, “If I had been that young, maybe I would have gone down that path, but it just wasn’t possible.”
From Minnesota Children’s Hospital, Dr. Goepferd pointed to another possible reason for the lower proportion of older transgender people: Trans people are more likely to die young because of less access to healthcare, higher rates of violence and suicide. .
“The sad truth is, we don’t have trans elders because they didn’t survive,” they said.
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