We’ve Been Tracking the Number of Americans Who Identify as Transgender – Soon, There Will Be No Reliable Way to Measure Them

Researchers have traditionally had a difficult time tracking the number of Americans who identify as transgender.

But over the past decade, our work has become easier, largely thanks to federal data. In 2014, for the first time, the federal government included a question on transgender identity in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System. It subsequently added gender identity questions to other surveys, like the National Crime Victimization Survey. Since 2016, we’ve been able to use federal datasets to estimate the number of people who identify as transgender at the national and state levels.

suggests that 2.1 million U.S. adults identify as transgender. , published in 2022, we found that 1.3 million U.S. adults identified this way. In our new report, we also found that 724,000 youth age 13 to 17 identified as transgender.

To arrive at these estimates, we drew from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey and Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System, which provide the most comprehensive data on the gender identity of Americans. Though these datasets are the best available to make these estimates, we lack state-level data in certain cases. So we used a statistical technique called multilevel regression and poststratification to fill in those gaps.

This information is important. It allows policymakers, educators, judges, the media and others to understand the size and characteristics of this population, as well as who will be affected by public policies, such as nondiscrimination laws that aim to protect transgender people or bans on transgender people’s use of public bathrooms. The U.S. Supreme Court has even cited our estimates in decisions that impact transgender people.

But our work is about to become a lot harder, if not impossible.

At the directive of the Trump administration, federal surveys will no longer collect data about gender identity. Questions that aim to identify transgender respondents will be removed, while binary sex questions with only “male” or “female” response options will remain.

Though data sources are being erased, the transgender population will not be. And yet it will likely be at least a decade before we can publish updated figures on the estimated number of people living in the U.S. who identify as transgender.

Age Group Differences Persist

But first, let’s highlight what the new report reveals.

One consistent pattern across our reports from 2017, 2022 and 2025 is that younger people are more likely to identify as transgender than older adults.

In our new report, however, we were able to see significant differences among different age groups of adults for the first time.

Those 18 to 34 are now significantly more likely to identify as transgender than those 65 and older, and those 18 to 24 are significantly more likely to identify as transgender than those 35 to 64.

When considering population changes over time, our estimates for the youngest age group – those 13 to 17 – have utilized different data sources and methodologies. Therefore, we can’t make direct comparisons across years. Among adults overall, we haven’t seen any significant changes over the past decade or so.

However, our estimate for the youngest adult age group – those 18 to 24 – is now significantly higher. Using 2014-15 data, we estimated that 0.7% of U.S. adults aged 18 to 24, or 205,850 people, identified as transgender. The data we analyzed from 2021-23 puts that figure at 2.7%, or 827,200 Americans.

This uptick doesn’t support the idea that there is a sudden, rapid growth in the transgender youth population, however. In fact, our findings are consistent with the idea that acceptance of gender and sexuality is generational and shaped by your social surroundings.

These generational differences likely impact whether someone will disclose their transgender identity on a survey. Our own analysis of CDC data found that young people are more likely than older adults to answer questions about their gender identity. This also means the real percentage of older adults who identify as transgender may be higher.

As younger transgender people grow older, we expect observed differences between age groups to diminish over time.

Disappearing Data Sources

More research is required to determine the reasons for this growth among young adults identifying as transgender. Yet future efforts to better identify and understand transgender population trends will likely be delayed for the foreseeable future.

Should gender identity data collection be reinstituted under a new presidential administration in 2029, federal surveys will need to be updated and administered. Once data collection resumes, three years of new data are required before we can update our estimates.

While we and other researchers will look to other data sources in the interim, there’s nothing that can fully replace federal data sources.

In the end, no amount of data suppression can erase the reality on the ground. Millions of transgender youth and adults will continue to live in communities across the U.S. – in cities and small towns, in red states and blue states. They’ll continue to enroll in schools, get hired for jobs and navigate health care systems.

This population will not vanish simply because some of those in power wish it would. But in order for us to continue to shed light on the characteristics and needs of the transgender population – whether it’s assessing impacts of gender-affirming care bans to changes in U.S. passport gender marker policies – we’ll need these questions to be added back on federal surveys.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The Conversation is a nonprofit news source dedicated to spreading ideas and expertise from academia into the public discourse.