Transgender News, Facts, Statistics

Updated/Revised Date: 10th Oct 2022
Author: Sexual Diversity | Contact: SexualDiversity.org
Additional References: Transgender News Publications

Synopsis: Recent news and information relating to transgender issues, including facts and statistics regarding the prevalence of discrimination and violence.

Definition

Transgender

Transgender is defined as the state of one's gender identity or gender expression not matching one's assigned sex. Transgender is independent of sexual orientation; transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, etc.; some may consider conventional sexual orientation labels inadequate or inapplicable. The definition of transgender includes:

• Non-identification with, or non-presentation as, the sex (and assumed gender) one was assigned at birth.
• People who were assigned a sex, usually at birth and based on their genitals, feel this is a false or incomplete description of themselves.
• The term trans man refers to female-to-male (FtM or F2M) transgender people, and trans woman refers to male-to-female (MtF or M2F) transgender people
• Of, relating to, or designating a person whose identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender roles but combines or moves between these.

Main Section

Transgender adults experience poorer health, on average than cisgender adults. Transgender adults also report higher rates of disability than cisgender adults, with the disparity remaining even after various demographic, socioeconomic, and health behavior factors are controlled for.

While people self-identify as transgender, the transgender identity umbrella includes sometimes-overlapping categories. These include transsexual, transvestite, cross-dresser; genderqueer; androgyne, and bigender. Usually not included are transvestic fetishists (because it is considered a paraphilia rather than gender identification) and rag kings and drag queens, who are performers who cross-dress for entertaining.

Legal procedures exist in some jurisdictions, allowing individuals to change their legal gender or name to reflect their gender identity. Requirements for these procedures vary from an explicit formal diagnosis of transsexualism to a diagnosis of gender identity disorder to a letter from a physician that attests to the individual's gender transition or having established a different gender role.

Transgender people vary greatly in choosing when, whether, and how to disclose their transgender status to family, close friends, and others. The prevalence of discrimination and violence against the transgender community can make coming out a risky decision. Fear of retaliatory behavior, such as being removed from the parental home while underage, is a cause for transgender people not to come out to their families until they have reached adulthood. Parental confusion and lack of acceptance of the child's transgenderism may be met with an effort to change their children back to "normal" by utilizing mental health services to alter their sexual orientation and what is seen as a "phase."

Researchers from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law found that 41% of people who are transgender or gender-nonconforming have attempted suicide sometime in their lives, nearly nine times the national average, according to a sweeping survey released three years ago. The risk of attempting suicide was especially severe for transgender or gender nonconforming people who had suffered discrimination or violence, such as being physically or sexually assaulted at work or school.