Transgender and non-binary Americans face high rates of unemployment and harassment, according to the largest survey of their lived experiences to date. The data reflect a longstanding pattern of discrimination at a time when states across the country have passed laws limiting their health care, bathroom access and participation in sports.
The findings come from the US Trans Survey, which many researchers and policymakers have relied on since a version of it first appeared in 2011. The National Center for Transgender Equality, an advocacy group, conducted the latest iteration of the survey in end of 2022, gathering responses from more than 92,000 transgender and non-binary Americans, ages 16 and older, from every state in the country.
The team released a preliminary analysis of responses to the survey’s 600 questions on Wednesday, with the full report expected later this year.
The survey was not given to a random sample of transgender people, so it cannot be interpreted as representative of the transgender population as a whole. It also targeted young people, with 43 percent of respondents aged 18 to 24.
However, respondents were more than three times as many as in 2015, the last time the survey was conducted, when 28,000 people took part.
“You don’t see data sets like this,” Sandy James, attorney and the lead investigator of the new study, said at a press conference. “Tens of thousands of trans people knew it was imperative to make their voices heard.”
Many respondents reported financial challenges. 18% of respondents said they were unemployed, much higher than the national rate, and a third said they had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. More than a quarter reported not seeing a doctor when needed in the past year because of high costs.
Almost a third of respondents said they had been verbally harassed in the past year, and 3% of respondents said they had been physically attacked in the past year because of their gender identity.
But they also reported positive experiences. The vast majority of respondents—almost 94 percent—said they were more satisfied with their lives after transitioning. Among those taking hormones, 98 percent said the treatments had made them more satisfied with life.
Since the 2015 survey, state legislatures have become much more hostile to LGBTQ people, with restrictions on health care for minors and adults, library books, bathroom access, school sports participation and gender recognition on legal documents. State legislatures are now considering nearly 400 such bills, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nearly half of respondents to the 2022 survey said they had considered moving in the previous year because of restrictive bills passed or introduced in their state, and 5 percent said they had moved. Forty-four percent reported severe psychological distress in the previous 30 days.
The results appear largely in line with the 2015 findings, although the team has yet to compare the data in detail, Dr James said.
“A steady state has been created, an environment in which people cannot thrive,” Dr James said. “And trans people are trying to go about their lives just like anyone else in the United States.”
The 2022 survey was the first to include respondents aged 16 and 17 and included more than 8,000 of the total respondents. The teenagers were excluded from some of the preliminary report’s other analyses, such as those related to their experiences with medical treatments, but will be included in the report to be published later this year.
60% of teens reported mistreatment at school, including verbal harassment, physical violence and cyberbullying, as well as being banned from using their chosen names, pronouns or the bathroom that matched their gender identity. Minors were also more likely than adults to report having family members who did not support their gender identity, and 5 percent said family members were violent toward them for being transgender.
