Survey of 90,000 trans people shows increased life satisfaction after transition
The largest-ever nationwide survey of trans people found workplace and medical discrimination continues, and that many report increased life satisfaction post-transition.
A survey of more than 90,000 transgender people in the U.S. — the largest nationwide survey of the community ever — found that trans people continue to experience workplace and medical discrimination. However, the overwhelming majority of them still report more life satisfaction after having transitioned.
The National Center for Transgender Equality, or NCTE, one of the country’s largest trans rights organizations, released its 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey Early Insights report Wednesday after a yearslong delay due, in part, to the pandemic. The survey, the most comprehensive look to date at life for transgender people in the U.S., comes as hundreds of bills in the last three years have attempted to roll back trans rights, most often by restricting trans people’s access to transition-related health care and trans students’ abilities to play school sports.
“There’s still a drought of information available to lawmakers, the media and advocates regarding our experiences and our needs,” NCTE Executive Director Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen said at a news conference Tuesday. “At best, we’re working in a vacuum of information. At worst, we’re combating dangerous misinformation being spread by anti-trans extremists. Without question, the misinformation and lack of understanding is underpinning these escalating legislative attacks against our community.”
The organization’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey had been the largest survey of trans people in the country, with nearly 28,000 respondents 18 and older, and it has been widely cited, including by Congress and the Supreme Court. Josie Caballero, the director of the survey, said the 2022 iteration more than tripled the number of respondents — with a total of 92,329 from every state and many U.S. territories — and was improved in a number of other ways. For example, it included 605 possible questions (though no respondent received all possible questions), up from 324 in the 2015 survey, and it included more than 8,000 respondents who were 16 and 17. However, study authors note that respondents who participated in the online survey were not drawn from a random sample and that though the sample is large, the findings might not be representative of all trans people.
Of the 84,170 adult respondents, 38% identified as nonbinary, 35% identified as transgender women, 25% identified as transgender men and 2% identified as cross-dressers.
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