Counting Transgender: Why it’s so difficult

[suzifrommd]

Counting Transgender: Why it's so difficult

Suzi Chase, 5/23/16

https://www.susans.org/2016/05/23/counting-transgender-difficult/

The New York Times ran a piece last week bemoaning the lack of data about the frequency of transgender people in the general population. There have been a number of surveys with widely contradictory results. A survey from the Williams Institute seems accepted as the most authoritative word, giving the number at about 0.3%, or three per thousand. Before that survey, a figure from Johns Hopkins University was often quoted in the media of 1 in 20,000, or 0.05%, reportedly derived from the frequency of gender surgery. A study in New Zealand found as much as 1.2% of respondents transgender, with more than twice that many reporting they questioned their gender.

We shouldn't find these discrepancies surprising.

[Dee Marshall]

Good job, Suzi! I noticed that you included the "forgotten" transgender people, those who haven't yet realized that they are. I also liked the part about different counts being needed for different purposes.