Assessing the Preliminary Data from the 2022 Trans Survey
The good, The bad, and the scary; what this means for trans people in 2024
Last week, on February 7th, the National Center for Transgender Equality put out the early findings from the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey.1 I have been absolutely itching to get my hands on this data for the last 15 months and now that this report is out I’m finally able to dive in. While there is not yet any raw data to run models or do any predictive analysis with, I think that the Early Insights Report does give us plenty of useful information to work with to draw preliminary conclusions and make some basic assessments with.
Effective advocacy is (in my experience) driven by good data, well-researched information, and moving personal stories. These tools can then be applied to developing policy solutions to the problems that face our communities. Transgender people are a relatively small population nationally and have increasingly come under attack for the last several years; while enduring this legislative onslaught, trans peoples’ existing vulnerability forces more of us to the margin every year. The data from the 2022 Trans Survey is coming out at an extremely crucial moment, and it is imperative that cisgender people take the time to learn from this information and advocate alongside us.
The 2015 Report
Before diving into the 2022 report, I want to highlight some relevant data from the 2015 report. Some of this data will match 1:1 with 2022 data or will help inform some assumptions that I make about the 2022 data. The 2015 Executive Summary2 received 27,715 respondents. The 2015 survey only covered the experiences of adults. The primary purpose of the survey and report was to, “…shift how the public and policymakers view the lives of transgender people and the challenges they face.” The 2015 report highlights the lives of transgender people as leading lives saturated with violence, harassment, and general mistreatment from society at large. The report sees that the increase from the 2008-2009 survey, combined with promising trends towards visibility could be spelling positive change in both society and policy for transgender people.
The focus of the 2015 report is centered on how targeted or pervasive forms of discrimination impact the lives of transgender people. The impacts often rely on the identities of transgender people existing on the intersection of multiple axes of marginalization with particularly Black or immigrant transgender women facing the highest levels of harassment and economic hardship. There is both a common cause, and a reverse causation here; being transgender makes someone more vulnerable to other forms of oppression and discrimination—it is a feedback loop that can lead many to desperation and into precarious living situations.
The Executive Summary for the 2015 report having this focus on hardship paints an extremely bleak picture:
In 2015, the unemployment rate of transgender people was three times (15%) that as the general U.S. population (5%).3
Just under 30% of transgender people were living in poverty, as compared to 12% of the general U.S. population. 4
Almost on third of respondents had at some point in their lives, experienced homelessness— with 23% of respondents experiencing some form of housing discrimination, and12% of respondents having experienced homelessness as a direct result of being transgender.5
One fifth of respondents had, at some point in their lives, engaged with the underground economy (drugs, sex work, or other criminalized work) as supplement or primary income.6
Nearly 90% (86%) of respondents who had engaged with the police report having been mistreated.7
46% of respondents had been verbally harassed in the prior year because of being transgender, 9% had been physically attacked in the past year. 8
What the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey illustrates is an intensely vulnerable population being exploited and abused by systemic forces, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, etc. This population suffers economically, physically and psychologically. Policy-minded individuals will have read this report and seen how existing laws and programs were clearly not enough. However, despite there being meaningful progress in areas such as self-id laws for government IDs or birth certificates9, as the 2022 preliminary data shows, it has clearly not been enough.
2022 Early Insights
The 2022 U.S. Trans Survey received 92,329 respondents, recruited from the population of transgender people aged 16 and older. The 2022 survey strives to be more comprehensive than the 2015 survey, largely in part due to the changing nature of the social, political, legal and other forces that inform the experiences of transgender individuals. In 2015 (the first year counted by Trans Legislative Tracker) there were 19 anti-trans bills introduced.10 Additionally, by 2022 trans visibility had dramatically increased. Despite a 2022 study,11 anecdotally it seems that as someone who was transgender before 2020 that there has been a meaningful increase in the number of people who are transitioning since then. This meta-regression study12 does show an increase in the number of transgender people between the years of 2007 and 2016. My synthesis of this information, is (1) it is possible that there are more people who identify as non-binary (e.g. not falling into the category of ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or otherwise not cisgender (those who identify with the sex assigned to them at birth), who are not counted by studies asking for binary transgender people, and (2) the number of transgender people is highest among young people, who are not counted in studies of adults.
In 2022 across the United States there were 174 anti-trans bills introduced (and here in February 2024 we can see that 2023 saw 589 anti-trans bills and so far in 2024 there have been 455 anti-trans bills introduced).13 That promising increase in visibility mentioned in 2015 seems to have cut both ways, with those who enabled or participated in the social harms against transgender people now pushing for further repression, and discrimination. It seems that transgender people were brought into the national spotlight within the last seven years, without any major change or action for us to be able to advocate for ourselves. This has both lead to more aesthetic acceptance, but as shown in the 2022 preliminary data, things have not gotten better.
As a transgender person who began my transition in 2018, first coming out as non-binary before coming out as a woman (another victim of the “he/him to he/they to they/he to they/them to they/she to she/they to she/her” pipeline)14. Transitioning during this time, the height of the Trump presidency and beginnings of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic led me to be exposed to all kinds of transphobia. From the passive workplace transphobia of misgendering or disgusted looks as I used the women’s bathroom, to having been harassed on the streets by men in cars or christo-fascist preachers on the subway. What is important for my experience is that it is neither exceptional nor unique. I would contend that most trans people—especially trans women— have experienced some version of this at one point in their life. The combination in the rise of transgender visibility from 2015 to 2022 coincided with a rise in far-right, reactionary, and even openly fascist politics in the United States, which has added fuel to the unequal treatment many transgender people have accepted as a normal part of our existences.
The 2022 U.S. Trans Survey cover far more aspects of life than the 2015 report. However, since the data being released is only preliminary, it is important to remember the shortcomings of the data, and what has been excluded. Per the Early Insights Report, “When interpreting the preliminary findings presented in this report, it is important to note that although the team sought to recruit a sample that was as representative as possible of transgender people in the U.S. and analytic weights reduce sample biases, study respondents were not drawn from a random sample. Therefore, while this sample is a large one, the findings may not be representative of all transgender people.”15
With that being said, here are some findings from the 2022 report that I feel are extremely relevant and important:
Gender Identity, while the 2015 has this breakdown in its full report, the population data breakdown like this. As someone trained to communicate data to the public, I deeply understand the urge to use the common and easily understood pie chart, but the pie chart often does not communicate the data well. Below is a screenshot taken from the report, followed by a tree map I made from the data. I believe that the tree map more effectively communicates the proportion of the subgroups to the whole.
Looking at this data I feel confident in making the assumption that there is a force which is depressing the number of people who are assigned male at birth (“amab”) from coming out as nonbinary—this force is a combination of patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, and racism. Despite younger people coming out as non-binary more and more16 there still seems to be a force which is driving a difference in those who are assigned female at birth (“afab”) who come out as non-binary. It only takes a quick search online to see that many non-binary (amab) people bemoaning their treatment and lack of visibility. This echoes my experience, too. Additionally, I believe there may also be a positive driving force which is driving the number of non-binary afab people higher, likely in my opinion due to some transmasculine people identifying as non-binary rather than as transgender men. Once we have the complete dataset it will be easier to look into this to see what the drivers are in the stark differences in non-binary populations.
Race. Again, as pie charts fail to adequately communicate, the population of transgender people in the United States is slightly more diverse than the overall population. This table shows the breakdown of U.S. population by racial demographics, with white people remaining the largest single demographic, at just over 60%. 17
This result is commendable. Since the racial demographic breakdown looks largely like the U.S. Population as a whole that indicates that the final data, though self-selected, it will likely be easy to generalize the data on the national scale, which is incredibly useful when drawing conclusions. Congratulations to the U.S. Trans Survey team for reaching a diverse and representative population. I would love to see if the populations continue to be representative by region but that will have to wait and see until the full dataset comes out.
This chart communicates a lot to me. First, is that with only 11% of transgender people having a bachelor’s degree there are two likely co-extant explanations for the “some college” section. The first is the most obvious, that 43% of respondents 18 and older are under 24. Many of these people are likely to still be in college. However, even with that being stated, the rate at which transgender people complete a bachelor’s degree is substantially lower than that of the national average of those over 25. The national average has 23.5% of adults over 25 in 2021 having attained a bachelor’s degree.18 Combining this with trends of 2015 data, and anecdotal/personal experience it seems very likely that while transgender people are just as likely to attend any amount of college, but are more likely to drop out of college. While we have to wait for the full dataset to come out to make a confident conclusion, I believe that this will bear out in the data.
30% of respondents were verbally harassed in the last 12 months, down from 46% in 2015.19
34% of transgender people are experiencing poverty, up from 30% in 2015, additionally, unemployment rates among transgender people increased by a fifth, from 15% to 18%.20 Poverty has decreased in the United States from 2015. In 2015 10.4% of families were in poverty, while in 2022 8.8% of families were in poverty.21 Poverty in the U.S. decreased by 15%, while among transgender people poverty increased by 13.3%.
30% of transgender people have experienced homelessness at some point in their life.22
11% of transgender people have faced employment discrimination.23
10% of transgender people have moved to a different state because of discrimination, 5% of transgender people have moved to a new state because of anti-trans laws.24
The 2022 United States Trans Survey is very likely going to reveal that the many social changes of the last seven years have impacted the transgender community particularly hard. Trans people remain economically disadvantaged, discriminated against in key social relationships such as employment and housing, harassed in public, and continually deprived of necessary and key support.
Looking Ahead
The data in 2022 reflects an environment far rosier than our present in 2024. Anti-Trans laws have dramatically increased since 2022.25 Transgender people are under constant attack by the press, such as the New York Times, which has been used by anti-trans adovcates to attack us.26 I am not optimistic that the full 2022 U.S. Trans Survey Report will show that there has been marked improvement in the quality of life of transgender people. I expect that the data will show a degradation of living standards and an increase in transgender people doing what they need to survive.
Some information that I am hoping to find out from the full data set:
How many transgender women with advanced degrees have engaged in sex work or other informal economy work for survival purposes.
Rates of substance use among transgender people.
Age at time of transition.
Common structural barriers to HRT.
Pareto distribution of incomes among transgender people by demographic.
Conclusion
As transgender people are increasingly under attack by various state governments, deprived of resources, facing harassment, being forcibly displaced, and seeing their siblings forced into impossible situations we must band together. States should take the following steps to protect their transgender populations:
mMake accessing HRT and other lifesaving care easier.
Make changing gender markers and names easier.
Prohibit the prosecution of those seeking transition-related care across state lines
Produce or support educational materials which can penetrate into states that are restricting education on transgender issues.
Provide relocation services for transgender people and their families to flee from states which are restricting access to life-saving care.
While it is unlikely all (or even most) of these steps will be followed, I consider these to be the bare minimum for state actors. And while we as transgender people wait, we should take our time and energy and devote it to shared communal mutual aid networks (evolving past the current system of direct aid), developing services to get HRT to people who cannot formally access this life-saving care, developing services and strategies to assist with relocation, and making online educational materials presented to youth in states restricting the mention of transgender people in the classroom.
Thank you so much for everyone who has taken the time to read this. Trans liberation is not a distant horizon to be patient for, it is a present moment we must build.