Percentages Or Sheer Numbers? What Are We?

[JodieBlonde]

I surfed into the rest of the intros and something really is causing me to think....let me pass it on..OK?

Just WHY do we see so many trans-ers of all categories nowadays?

Is this something that always was and if we put a factor of say, 1% of the population that is genuinely gender-messed, then is it just the sheer numbers that are showing up now or has the percentage climbed to 2- or 3% now?

Maybe it's increasing numbers of stray mutagenic gamma rays hitting our conceptional-DNA or what..but are we increasing in percentages or just numbers?

I want to dismiss the "outed" numbers as I think socially we are still really in closets..at least until we can pass or just don't care and go out and let the chips fall. Thinking that way might be wrong..but somehow I feel that PERCENTAGE-WISE we are growing and the incidences of gender confusion is a growing trend.

What do you all think?

PS: Dear any mod...I accidentally hit the "Show All Posts Read" button...er...how do I undo that?

[Keira]

There was always a lot of "gender variants", its just that now they're not hiding under a rock afraid of being beaten down; the amount of support available now is staggering. Even in 1995, there wasn't even 1/10 of what exists now on and off the internet.

Someone like Lynn Conway who transitioned is the late 60's is a hero in my book. Others who did it before are superheros.

[J.T.]

There are more resources out there, the subject is actually talked about!  I don't remember hearing anything about Trans issues when i was a kid.  You were either a boy or a girl, that was it.

[Doc]

I've read that recent research suggests that we are about 1 in 3,000 people, and occur at a uniform rate regardless of the country/culture, and that numbers of transgendered Native Americans recorded by white 'explorers' (exploiters) a few hundred years ago revealed them to be a similar proportion of that population.

One in three thousand far less than 1%, but it is quite a lot, really -- something like fourteen trans people would be there if you filled every seat in pro-sports stadium with randomly selected humans. In an average high-school there are few enough students that you will probably eventually recognize every one of them on sight, and know the names of most, and statistically, one or two will be trans.

I think we know about it more because trans people now (like native american transpeople in the past) know that they are trans since it is now recognized (if not accepted) in our society.

[gennee]

Trans people have always been around. I have Native-American ancestry and I wonder if there were transgender on my family tree? I have always seen transgendered people. It's just over the past decade or two that we have been more visible.

Keira, I agree with you about Lynn Conway. I've heard her speak and she is tremendous. I wish that I could have met Christine Jorgenson.

Gennee

[Shana A]

What we now consider as transgender people have always been a part of human society, although not necessarily identifying as such at their tme. Leslie Feinberg's Transgender Warriors is a good resource.

zythyra