Given the time stamp, I was likely extremely drunk
December 14, 2014 4:14 PM Subscribe
Why We Don’t Know The Size Of The Transgender Population In 2001, Kerith Conron was working on LGBT issues in Boston’s health department. She discovered that homeless transgender people were sleeping on benches because the shelters, which were segregated by gender, didn’t know what to do with them. As a result, transgender people weren’t included in the city’s assessment of who needed shelter.
Individuals who have undergone a sex reassignment may identify as cisgender (i.e. not transgender), stating, for example, “I am female” rather than “I am a trans female.”
SOME individuals. And saying "I am female" does not necessarily imply you're cis at all. I mean christ, how many cis women go around saying "I am a cis female" on a regular basis? I am a trans woman, most of the time, that's not relevant or necessary for me to state. So I just say "I am a woman" though that does not at all imply that I identify as cis. I'm sure there are some individuals who identify as cis after having completed gender transition, though I'd posit that it's incredibly rare. There are definitely people that no longer identify as trans, but I'm not convinced that would necessarily make them identify as cisgender - more likely they'd reject the terminology and perhaps identify as cissexual (or more likely, just "not trans" which is not quite the same as identifying as cis).
“First you ask about what sex is on your birth certificate. Then later in the survey you ask, ‘What is your gender?’ The idea is if those are different, then you’ll see it. You’re not relying on them to specifically identify as transgender.”
Personally, I have never seen my birth certificate. It is a piece of paper that may or may not exist, as far as I'm concerned. If I were asked what sex was on my birth certificate, I would say female (which is probably a lie - for now, because:) It is also possible to get new birth certificates issued with the gender you identify as. Not everywhere, and in many places you have to jump through hella bureaucratic hoops for it, but nevertheless. It's a pretty terrible way to try to arrive at the data they're looking for, and will likely seriously underestimate trans people's prevalence in society.
posted by Dysk at 4:43 PM on December 14, 2014 [9 favorites]
SOME individuals. And saying "I am female" does not necessarily imply you're cis at all. I mean christ, how many cis women go around saying "I am a cis female" on a regular basis? I am a trans woman, most of the time, that's not relevant or necessary for me to state. So I just say "I am a woman" though that does not at all imply that I identify as cis. I'm sure there are some individuals who identify as cis after having completed gender transition, though I'd posit that it's incredibly rare. There are definitely people that no longer identify as trans, but I'm not convinced that would necessarily make them identify as cisgender - more likely they'd reject the terminology and perhaps identify as cissexual (or more likely, just "not trans" which is not quite the same as identifying as cis).
“First you ask about what sex is on your birth certificate. Then later in the survey you ask, ‘What is your gender?’ The idea is if those are different, then you’ll see it. You’re not relying on them to specifically identify as transgender.”
Personally, I have never seen my birth certificate. It is a piece of paper that may or may not exist, as far as I'm concerned. If I were asked what sex was on my birth certificate, I would say female (which is probably a lie - for now, because:) It is also possible to get new birth certificates issued with the gender you identify as. Not everywhere, and in many places you have to jump through hella bureaucratic hoops for it, but nevertheless. It's a pretty terrible way to try to arrive at the data they're looking for, and will likely seriously underestimate trans people's prevalence in society.
posted by Dysk at 4:43 PM on December 14, 2014 [9 favorites]
There are a lot of John's out there, I suspect.
Yup. Everyone I know in the community (or in trans health care) says the number of people coming out and transitioning each year is not only increasing, but increasing at an accelerating pace, as if there was some sort of Moore's Law for gender. Which suggests that the number of people who have yet to come out is still quite large compared to the number who have come out already.
I think over the next decade or two — unless there is a major backlash which drives people back into the closet, which is always possible and let's not get complacent here — we are going to learn that far more people are trans (or genderqueer or otherwise not-cis) than anyone ever suspected.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:03 PM on December 14, 2014 [9 favorites]
Yup. Everyone I know in the community (or in trans health care) says the number of people coming out and transitioning each year is not only increasing, but increasing at an accelerating pace, as if there was some sort of Moore's Law for gender. Which suggests that the number of people who have yet to come out is still quite large compared to the number who have come out already.
I think over the next decade or two — unless there is a major backlash which drives people back into the closet, which is always possible and let's not get complacent here — we are going to learn that far more people are trans (or genderqueer or otherwise not-cis) than anyone ever suspected.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:03 PM on December 14, 2014 [9 favorites]
John was born with male genitalia
this is such a weird thing to say. It looks likes what you would get if you tried to dumb down "assigned male at birth" into something more like the problematic yet familiar "genetic male" without really thinking why we might prefer one over the other.
posted by thug unicorn at 5:29 PM on December 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
this is such a weird thing to say. It looks likes what you would get if you tried to dumb down "assigned male at birth" into something more like the problematic yet familiar "genetic male" without really thinking why we might prefer one over the other.
posted by thug unicorn at 5:29 PM on December 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Boston had a nifty location on an island for homeless, a short bus ride but no neighbors, no one to nimby the place out. But the bridge to the island was below any priority list for infrastructure repair and one day in the fall was shut down, they were given 2 hours to get the staff and 700 homeless off the island. Boston homeless have no where to go at this point what ever the gender.
posted by sammyo at 5:32 PM on December 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 5:32 PM on December 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
Boston had a nifty location on an island for homeless, a short bus ride but no neighbors, no one to nimby the place out. But the bridge to the island was below any priority list for infrastructure repair and one day in the fall was shut down, they were given 2 hours to get the staff and 700 homeless off the island. Boston homeless have no where to go at this point what ever the gender.
Beyond being just homeless shelters, Long Island was also home to a detox facility. The facts coming out of this story have just been horrifying. I read an article in Spare Change that quoted a woman saying in the past few months she has buried three friends who were receiving substance abuse treatment before the island was closed.
posted by threeants at 5:57 PM on December 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Beyond being just homeless shelters, Long Island was also home to a detox facility. The facts coming out of this story have just been horrifying. I read an article in Spare Change that quoted a woman saying in the past few months she has buried three friends who were receiving substance abuse treatment before the island was closed.
posted by threeants at 5:57 PM on December 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Such a broad definition [of "transgender"] could also be problematic. According to Logan Casey, a political science student at the University of Michigan, it could lead to transgender identities being dismissed as “just a choice.” Casey, who publicly identifies as a trans man, believes that could undermine support for transgender rights.
Yeah, the same argument was made about sexual orientation - any suggestion that it may not be biological was met with serious criticism in the gay community. But even if it is a choice, people should have rights! We shouldn't need to have to concretely prove that every transgendered person was biologically destined to be so. Studies have shown differences in brain scans between trans people and cis people, but not all trans people can be neatly sorted into "female-to-male" or "male-to-female." There are people outside of that binary spectrum and I hope they don't get cast aside to make equal rights more palatable to the masses. This is what HRC did with trans people - excluded them to make gay civil rights easier to achieve. Now that same sex marriage is legal in many places, people are seeing that the sky has not fallen. The sky will not fall if we recognize more than two genders, either.
posted by desjardins at 6:48 PM on December 14, 2014 [12 favorites]
Yeah, the same argument was made about sexual orientation - any suggestion that it may not be biological was met with serious criticism in the gay community. But even if it is a choice, people should have rights! We shouldn't need to have to concretely prove that every transgendered person was biologically destined to be so. Studies have shown differences in brain scans between trans people and cis people, but not all trans people can be neatly sorted into "female-to-male" or "male-to-female." There are people outside of that binary spectrum and I hope they don't get cast aside to make equal rights more palatable to the masses. This is what HRC did with trans people - excluded them to make gay civil rights easier to achieve. Now that same sex marriage is legal in many places, people are seeing that the sky has not fallen. The sky will not fall if we recognize more than two genders, either.
posted by desjardins at 6:48 PM on December 14, 2014 [12 favorites]
Oh, and I have known people like John, and it's a pretty torturous existence for them to live with such a secret. I don't think it's uncommon at all. I also think it's very common for people to wish they could be the "opposite sex" for a temporary period.
posted by desjardins at 6:51 PM on December 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by desjardins at 6:51 PM on December 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'm sure official estimates of the trans population are substantially off as well. Doing research in Second Life, I have met literally hundreds of people like John who are trans-identified but do not believe they will ever transition. Most are trans women, living female virtual lives--sometimes with the support of wives who know about their female identities, are opposed to their transitioning, but "allow" them to present female in virtual worlds as an outlet. The social costs of transitioning to female are just so high that many female-identified people assigned male at birth stay in the closet--especially if they have high-power careers, cis woman spouses, or children.
The social costs of transitioning to male, or of identifying as genderqueer without a medical or legal transition, are just a lot lower. Most of the trans people I've encountered in Second Life who consistently present as male there have chosen to transition out in real life, after affirming for themselves how much more authentic they felt in a male virtual body. The genderqueer folk in Second Life were generally out to their friends as such in real life. But such is the power of transmisogyny that this was not the case for virtual trans women at this point in history.
posted by DrMew at 8:07 PM on December 14, 2014 [15 favorites]
The social costs of transitioning to male, or of identifying as genderqueer without a medical or legal transition, are just a lot lower. Most of the trans people I've encountered in Second Life who consistently present as male there have chosen to transition out in real life, after affirming for themselves how much more authentic they felt in a male virtual body. The genderqueer folk in Second Life were generally out to their friends as such in real life. But such is the power of transmisogyny that this was not the case for virtual trans women at this point in history.
posted by DrMew at 8:07 PM on December 14, 2014 [15 favorites]
If the definition is one like that quoted in the article, including both "gender identity and/or gender expression," then I'd absolutely expect an accurate count to be far higher than half a percent. The ways in which we provide services and assess need is woefully inadequate overall, and so much more so for this.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:25 PM on December 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Dip Flash at 9:25 PM on December 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah. And actually I see a lot of trans people these days rejecting the "born this way" narrative pretty strenuously.Such a broad definition [of "transgender"] could also be problematic. According to Logan Casey, a political science student at the University of Michigan, it could lead to transgender identities being dismissed as “just a choice.” Casey, who publicly identifies as a trans man, believes that could undermine support for transgender rights.Yeah, the same argument was made about sexual orientation - any suggestion that it may not be biological was met with serious criticism in the gay community. But even if it is a choice, people should have rights! We shouldn't need to have to concretely prove that every transgendered person was biologically destined to be so.
Part of it is that a lot of us get hung up on the question of whether we are Really Trans Enough to transition. People lose years and years agonizing over it. It doesn't help that historically healthcare professionals (and often trans people themselves) have promulgated impossibly high standards, like "You should only transition if you are 100% certain you will kill yourself if you don't." Taken literally, the only way anyone could ever be Trans Enough under that standard is if they were already dead by their own hand.
So it can actually be really liberating, for some of us, to say "Fuck it. I don't care if I'm trans enough. I don't care if I was born to be a woman or born to be a man or what. I'm choosing to transition because it feels like something I want to do. If that's too hard for some people to swallow politically then I didn't want them as allies anyway." Obviously not everyone feels this way — probably in fact it's a minority position, just because the "born this way" narrative is so pervasive; and it's also super-controversial — but enough people do feel this way for there to be a controversy about it.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:24 PM on December 14, 2014 [15 favorites]
Yup. Everyone I know in the community (or in trans health care) says the number of people coming out and transitioning each year is not only increasing, but increasing at an accelerating pace, as if there was some sort of Moore's Law for gender. Which suggests that the number of people who have yet to come out is still quite large compared to the number who have come out already.
Referrals to UK gender clinics have increased 10% year-on-year (remember, that's effectively compouind 'interest'!) since 2000, except for the last five years where that figure has been gradually going up to just over 20% now, year-on-year.
Meanwhile there's a Tory government, a freeze if not cut on NHS funding, and waiting lists are getting outrageously silly. It's years for a first appointment at many clinics now, and the current waiting list for vaginoplasty is something like two and a half years, and constantly growing. They can't keep up, and it's only going to get worse unless the government and NHS start taking it seriously as a funding priority, which, well, hah. Not going to happen.
So it's all slowly getting better for trans people (except for those very real practical ways where it's only getting worse all the time).
posted by Dysk at 2:48 AM on December 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
Referrals to UK gender clinics have increased 10% year-on-year (remember, that's effectively compouind 'interest'!) since 2000, except for the last five years where that figure has been gradually going up to just over 20% now, year-on-year.
Meanwhile there's a Tory government, a freeze if not cut on NHS funding, and waiting lists are getting outrageously silly. It's years for a first appointment at many clinics now, and the current waiting list for vaginoplasty is something like two and a half years, and constantly growing. They can't keep up, and it's only going to get worse unless the government and NHS start taking it seriously as a funding priority, which, well, hah. Not going to happen.
So it's all slowly getting better for trans people (except for those very real practical ways where it's only getting worse all the time).
posted by Dysk at 2:48 AM on December 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
I also think it's very common for people to wish they could be the "opposite sex" for a temporary period.
I've been thinking that one of the outcomes of increased trans and gender-nonconforming visibility, plus incremental improvements in things like open-ended options on forms, is going to be a lot more people going through a short or long period of experimentation with gender expression and/or identity, which is great no matter what they decide long-term. It will be good not just for the many people who need to try things out to figure out what works for them, but also just because experimenting is fun and people should be able to do so without repercussions and without guilt; there also must be a significant number of people whose gender expression/identity will go through an arc over their lifetime, and allowing that to change and evolve organically will be much healthier than forcing conformity.
But the article also gets at how access to this safe space for exploration is unequally distributed like so much in our horribly unequal society. If you are middle class and attending an elite college, there is likely going to be support and humane bathroom policies and so on. But most people aren't in that situation, and I think we have all seen the statistics for the barriers faced by trans people generally and especially trans women.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:25 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
I've been thinking that one of the outcomes of increased trans and gender-nonconforming visibility, plus incremental improvements in things like open-ended options on forms, is going to be a lot more people going through a short or long period of experimentation with gender expression and/or identity, which is great no matter what they decide long-term. It will be good not just for the many people who need to try things out to figure out what works for them, but also just because experimenting is fun and people should be able to do so without repercussions and without guilt; there also must be a significant number of people whose gender expression/identity will go through an arc over their lifetime, and allowing that to change and evolve organically will be much healthier than forcing conformity.
But the article also gets at how access to this safe space for exploration is unequally distributed like so much in our horribly unequal society. If you are middle class and attending an elite college, there is likely going to be support and humane bathroom policies and so on. But most people aren't in that situation, and I think we have all seen the statistics for the barriers faced by trans people generally and especially trans women.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:25 AM on December 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
I've been thinking that one of the outcomes of increased trans and gender-nonconforming visibility, plus incremental improvements in things like open-ended options on forms, is going to be a lot more people going through a short or long period of experimentation with gender expression and/or identity, which is great no matter what they decide long-term.
Yup. One of the stock answers to the "Am I trans enough?" question is "Well, if you're seriously worried about it, you're probably genderqueer at the very least. Cis people just don't agonize over whether or not they're trans enough." It's occurred to me that as trans visibility and acceptance goes up, that's going to stop being as true.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:34 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yup. One of the stock answers to the "Am I trans enough?" question is "Well, if you're seriously worried about it, you're probably genderqueer at the very least. Cis people just don't agonize over whether or not they're trans enough." It's occurred to me that as trans visibility and acceptance goes up, that's going to stop being as true.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:34 AM on December 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
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