More people identifying as trans than ever before

‘We as a culture just need to lean into the fact that there is gender diversity among us’

A new study shows that 1.16 million Americans now identify as transgender.

Almost half are young adults or teenagers – 43 per cent. The report used government health surveys from between 2017 and 2020 to estimate that 1.4 per cent of teens aged between 13 and 17 and 1.3 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 were trans. That’s compared to 0.5 per cent of all adults in the US.

The numbers reveal a spike in trans identification among younger people, with the estimated number of trans people between 13 and 15 almost doubling compared to the previous report from the same team of researchers, released in 2017, although the earlier study employed other methods.

The figures also show a strong contrast between generations. Younger people more often have the social acceptance and language skills needed to explore their gender identity. But the figures also show stark divides between states, meaning community influence may also play a part.

The medical director of the Gender Health Program at Children’s Minnesota hospital, Dr Angela Goepferd, told The New York Times that “it’s developmentally appropriate for teenagers to explore all facets of their identity — that is what teenagers do”.

“And, generationally, gender has become a part of someone’s identity that is more socially acceptable to explore,” Dr Goepferd added.

Dr Goepferd, who is nonbinary, said that many teens might not require medication or surgery to transition, which was usually the case for previous generations.

The surveys used in the study were created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and didn’t ask younger teens about nonbinary or other identities – something which has also increased in the last few years.

Almost 25 per cent of the adults taking part in the surveys who said they identified as trans said they were “gender nonconforming” – as in they didn’t identify as a transgender man or woman.

“We as a culture just need to lean into the fact that there is gender diversity among us,” Dr Goepferd toldThe Times. “And that it doesn’t mean that 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 survey data was reviewed by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles law school.

Younger teens make up 7.6 per cent of the US population as a whole, but around 18 per cent of transgender Americans. For 18 to 24-year-olds, they make up 11 per cent of the US population, but 24 per cent of transgender people.

People between 25 and 64 make up 62 per cent of the population and 47 per cent of the transgender community. Around 20 per cent of Americans are older than 65 – a group that makes up 10 per cent of the trans population.

The lead author of the report, Jody Herman, told The Times that “it’s important to know that trans people live everywhere in the United States and trans people are a part of communities across the country”.

“We use the best available data, but we need more and better data all the time,” Dr Herman added.

When compiling the 2017 report, the researchers didn’t have survey data for younger teens, but they instead used statistical modelling to infer based on figures collected from adults. They estimated at the time that there were 150,000 trans teens in the US – 0.7 per cent of teenagers.

That number has now risen to 300,000 following the inclusion of high school survey data – but it’s not clear if that increase shows a real rise in the number of trans young people or if the previous estimate was inaccurate – or both.

“That’s the bewildering question of why this is all happening,” Dr Herman said.

About half of both trans teens and adults were white, with a disproportionally large number identifying as Latino.

New York is the state with the largest estimated number of trans teens – three per cent. Wyoming had the lowest – 0.6 per cent. Among adults, the spectrum was narrower, with 0.9 per cent identifying as trans in North Carolina and 0.2 per cent in Missouri.

The surveys for adolescents were conducted in 15 states – Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, and Wisconsin. The data from those states were used to make models and estimate the figures for the remaining states.

Professor of psychology and the director of the Sexual and Gender Diversity Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Phillip Hammack, told The Times that the numbers “signifies a new confidence among a new generation to be authentic in their gender identity”.

“I think we did see something very similar, we just maybe didn’t have the exact numbers to back it up, as we saw more visibility around labelling oneself as gay, lesbian, bisexual back in the nineties,” Dr Hammack said.

Non-binary college student Indigo Giles said they better understood their identity after discovering like-minded people on Tumblr.

“People who have maybe been having these feelings for a long time, but haven’t had the words to put to them, finally can see, in such a readily accessible way, others that feel the same,” Giles said.

Dr Hammack noted that a person in their fifties spoke of the difficulty of coming out as trans later in life, saying “we look around, and everybody’s so young”.

Dr Hammack added that some who identify as masculine or butch lesbians have said that “if I was that young, maybe I would have gone down that path, but it wasn’t available”.

“The harsh reality is we don’t have trans elders because they didn’t survive,” Dr Goepferd added, noting the lack of access to healthcare, and the prevalence of violence and suicide.