Transgender Misinformation

There is a lot of misinformation out there about transgender folks and gender affirming care, so I thought I would share with you some statistics.

It’s estimated that there are about 3 million trans adults and youths in the US, this means they make up approximately 1.4% of our population.

And yet, as of my writing this post there were already 138 anti-trans bills proposed to block trans folks from receiving basic healthcare, education, legal recognition and the right to exist in public spaces.

This disproportionate targeting of the trans population is indicative of the level of fearmongering and misinformation out there.

And because there is a purported concern for youth that is often cited for this fear and legislation, I would also offer information recently published in the Journal of American Medical Association (a peer reviewed journal).

This study looked at the number of youths identifying as trans who were utilizing private health insurance, and the number of those youth was less than 18,000. Among these adolescents, less than 1,000 accessed puberty blockers and less than 2,000 accessed hormones.

In other words, less than 0.1% of the teenagers with private insurance in the US identifying as trans and accessing gender affirming medical care. This suggests that there is not an epidemic of youths identifying as trans and getting gender affirming care.

Remember, that this does not cover the experience of trans youth who are on state insurance, those who do not feel safe being identified in official documents as trans, those disallowed to identify as trans by their families, or those disallowed to seek gender affirming medical care.

Sources: NPR and TransLegislation.com and UCLA Williams Institute