More than 2.8 million Americans identify as transgender, report finds
Roughly 2.8 million Americans who are 13 or older identify as transgender, according to a new study.
The figure represents 1% of the U.S. population in that age group, according to the report published by the Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law, which has been estimating the transgender population size since 2011.
According to the study’s findings, transgender individuals tend to be younger than the overall U.S. population.
More than 75% of transgender people ages 13 and older are under 35, compared with 34% of the entire U.S. population in the same age group.
Jody Herman, the report’s lead author and a senior scholar of public policy at the Williams Institute, said this trend of younger generations being more likely to identify as transgender is expected to continue.
“Youth and young adults are more likely to identify as transgender due to a variety of factors, including a greater willingness among younger individuals to disclose that they identify as transgender on surveys,” Herman said in a news release.
Improvements in data collection for youth have helped provide more accurate estimates of youth who identify as transgender, according to study co-author Andrew R. Flores, a distinguished visiting scholar at the Williams Institute and an assistant professor of government at American University.
“Federal datasets that include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity have provided critical information to researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and the public,” Flores said in the news release.
The number of adults who identify as transgender has remained “fairly consistent” over time, according to the study.
The breakdown of adults who identify as transgender is almost an even split between transgender men, transgender women and nonbinary people — coming in at 34.2%, 32.7% and 33.1%, respectively.
The study also noted that the race and ethnicity distribution of transgender individuals “appears similar to that of the U.S. population.”
At the state level, Minnesota was estimated to have the highest percentage of transgender adults, making up 1.2% of the population of people ages 18 or older, while Hawaii is reported to have the highest percentage of transgender youths, comprising 3.6% of the population in the 13 to 17 age group.
Researchers used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-administered public health surveys called the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, the study said.