As many states pass discriminatory laws against transgender people and the issues affecting them gain more and more visibility every day, it’s fair to wonder, “how many transgender people are there in the United States?” Well, thanks to a new study by the Williams Institute at UCLA, we have a pretty solid estimate.
The Williams Institute used information from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, which includes an optional question that asks if a respondent is trans. Based on the number of respondents who answered “yes” and a state’s population, the Institute was able to come up with an estimate for the United States and each individual state.
According to the study there are right around 1.4 million transgender people living in the United States. That works out to about 0.6 percent of the population. The state with the largest number of transgender people is California, which is not surprising as Cali is the state with the most people, period.
The place where trans people are the largest percentage of the population is Washington, D.C. The 14,550 trans people living in the capital account for 2.8 percent of its population. If you limit the contest to states, then California comes out on top again. Transgender people account for 0.76 percent of California’s population. New Mexico and Georgia are tied for third with a 0.75 percent population share.
These numbers help to quantify just who we’re talking about when trans issues come up in conversation. If you’re sitting in Marietta and somehow upset that the military is allowing trans people to serve, just try and remember that you’re talking about 55,000 of your fellow Georgians.
(Via The Williams Institute)
