In very important news for the transgender community, the Williams Institute has published a new report which has increased the estimate of the number of transgender persons in the United States – from the prior 700-800,000 to 1.4 million. That’s an increase from 0.3 to 0.6 percent, or a doubling of our estimated numbers.
The report is based on new data from the Centers for Disease Control’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), and it provides estimates on both a national and a state-by-state basis. The entire report can be found here, and it is chock-full of statistics, including breakdowns by age grouping and 95 percent confidence intervals. There are a couple of interesting demographic maps as well, showing that transgender persons appear to be concentrated, of all places, in the southern half of the United States, as well as the west coast.
Let me share some of the high-level results here:
- Kansas is estimated to have 9,300 transgender persons, or 0.43 percent of the state.
- Missouri is estimated to have 25,050 transgender persons, or 0.54 percent of the state.
- Hawaii has the most transgender persons by percentage, at 0.78 percent (however, the District of Colombia has an incredible 2.77 percent of its residents identifying as transgender).
- North Dakota has the lowest percentage of transgender persons, at 0.30 percent. Note that even though the “Rough Rider State” comes in 50th place, its percentage of transgender persons is actually equal to the previous nationwide estimate.
In terms of absolute population, California has the most transgender residents, at an incredible 218,400. For reference, that is 30,000 more than the entire active duty United States Marine Corps. Send in the transpeople!
Source: Flores, Andrew R. et al. “How Many Adults Identify as Transgender in the United States?” The Williams Institute, June, 2016.
