Gender Identity in the United States

 

Now that we’ve discussed transgender and nonbinary identities, let’s take a look at the numbers behind gender identity in the United States. 

The Pew Research Center has determined 1.6% of American adults are transgender or nonbinary.

Pew’s data is the best I’ve found on the prevalence of transgender identities in the United States.

Pew collected this data from its American Trends Panel, a nationally representative panel of randomly selected US adults. Respondents participated through self-administered online surveys.

The survey is weighted to be representative of the US adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, education, and other categories.

Pew surveyed 10,188 US adults from May 16-22, 2022. 

 

 

Pew determined the number of trans and nonbinary US adults based on three questions.

First, Pew asked respondents if they were assigned male or female at birth, on their original birth certificate.

Second, Pew asked respondents if they describe themselves as a man, a woman, nonbinary, or in some other way.

If a respondent described themselves in some other way, they could provide a write-in answer in a text box.

Third, if a respondent’s sex and gender didn’t match, the survey asked them to confirm their previous answers. 

Pew used this confirmation question to avoid misclassifying respondents as transgender who made a mistake when answering one of the earlier questions. 

In its report, Pew explained this type of error can have an outsized effect on estimates of small populations, such as the transgender and nonbinary population, making it appear larger than it actually is.

Write-in responses for the second question were included in the categories of man, woman, and nonbinary if the response clearly fit into one of those groups.

Write-in responses for specific nonbinary identities, such as genderfluid and agender, were categorized as nonbinary.

 

 

Based on the questions described above, Pew calculated the following results.

(If you're reading this article on your phone, you can view the tables more clearly if you rotate your phone to view them in landscape mode.) 

 

Identity                                                       US Adults

Not transgender or nonbinary                         96.3%

Nonbinary                                                        1.0%

Trans man or trans woman                              0.6%

Another identity                                                0.5%

 

A total of 1.6% of respondents either declined to answer their gender assigned at birth, declined to answer how they describe their gender now, or didn’t confirm their answers to the first two questions.

It’s possible that some of these respondents were trans men, trans women, or nonbinary, but preferred not to share that information.

 

 

Adding together the binary transgender and nonbinary responses, 1.6% of US adults identified as either nonbinary or transgender.

  

It’s also worth noting that there are considerably more nonbinary people than binary transgender people in the U.S.

This is especially noteworthy because nonbinary people receive almost no attention from the public at all.

Binary transgender people are currently receiving a great deal of attention, but that’s mainly because conservatives and Republicans constantly attack them in hateful and bigoted ways as part of an unnecessary and reactionary moral panic.

So not all attention is good or helpful, to say the least.

But it’s worth keeping in mind that among transgender US adults, there are considerably more nonbinary people than binary trans people.

 

And as a reminder, I consider nonbinary people to be transgender, because they identify as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth.

In its results, Pew used transgender to refer to trans men and trans women, whereas I use transgender to encompass nonbinary people as well.

So where Pew used transgender, I will use the term binary transgender.

 

 

Gender Identity by Age

 

Pew broke down its gender identity data for various age groups, which you can see in the table below.

As is the case with all survey data, subcategories might not add exactly to totals due to rounding.

 

                           Nonbinary        Binary Trans           Total

All Adults              1.0%                     0.6%                    1.6%

 

Ages 18-29            3.0%                     2.0%                   5.1%

Ages 30-49            1.3%                     0.3%                   1.6%

Ages 50+               0.1%                     0.2%                    0.3%

  

As you can see, transgender and nonbinary identity is more common among each younger age group.

Pew created a bar graph to illustrate its findings by age group. 

 

Just over 5% of US adults under 30 identify as either nonbinary, a trans woman, or a trans man, a significantly higher total than for older age groups.

 

 

Primary Source: About 5% of young adults in the US say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth

(Pew Research Center)

 

 

I had additional questions about Pew’s findings, so I emailed the Pew Research Center, and they provided me with information from their survey results that hasn’t been published anywhere, until now. 

In a previous article, I discussed the results of Gallup’s polling on LGBT identity.

 

 

 Previous Coverage: Sexual Orientation in the United States

(Meticulous Musings)

 

 

Gallup divided its LGBT data by generation. The youngest generation Gallup provided data for were Gen Z adults.

Gallup defined Gen Z adults as people who were born between 1997 and 2004, and were 18 to 25 years old in 2022.

  

To easily compare Pew’s data to Gallup's, I asked Pew to provide me with its gender identity numbers for 18 to 25 year olds. 

Both Pew's and Gallup's surveys were conducted last year, in 2022.

 

Pew provided me the following statistics.

 

                               Nonbinary      Binary Trans       Total

Ages 18-25                4.1%                   2.8%               6.9%

 

 

According to the Pew Research Center, 6.9% of US adults ages 18-25 identify as nonbinary or transgender.

That’s more than 1 in 15 people in that age group.

 

Now that we have Pew’s quality data to work with, we can begin comparing their findings to Gallup’s.

 

 

Comparison to Gallup’s data

 

I previously discussed the results of Gallup’s survey, which asked US adults whether they identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

In that poll, 0.6% of US adults identified as transgender. 

This matches the 0.6% of US adults who identified as binary transgender in Pew’s survey.

So it appears that if you survey US adults and ask if they identify as transgender, you are only going to receive affirmative responses from binary trans people. 

We will examine how nonbinary people describe themselves, and whether they think of themselves as transgender, in an upcoming article in this series.

 

Nonbinary wasn’t listed as an option among the four LGBT identities Gallup listed in its poll.

People could volunteer a response not listed, but only 0.1% of people volunteered miscellaneous responses Gallup classified as “Other LGBT.”

That’s far less than the 1% who identified as Nonbinary in the Pew Research Center survey.

A total of 7.2% of US adults identified as LGBT in Gallup’s survey.

Nonbinary people are potentially the largest LGBT group who aren’t included in this total. 

So, the number of LGBT US adults could be as high as 8.2%, if Nonbinary were added as a potential response to Gallup’s question.

Although, I suspect a non-trivial number of nonbinary people would have identified as bisexual in Gallup’s survey, and so would already be counted toward the total.

 

 

 

LGBT Identities

 

We’ve covered several LGBT survey results.

We still have more to go, but let’s compare the sizes of the identity groups we’ve examined thus far.

 

Identity                   US adults                          Survey

Bisexual                       4.2%                               Gallup

Gay                              1.4%                               Gallup

Lesbian                        1.0%                               Gallup

Nonbinary                    1.0%                                  Pew

Binary Trans                0.6%                                  Pew

Asexual                        0.3%                         Research Study

 

 

I created a bar graph, using Flourish, to illustrate these numbers. 

Flourish is website that allows users to create awesome graphs, charts, maps, and infographics. 

 

 

 A 2022 Gallup survey provided the prevalence estimates for Bisexual, Gay, and Lesbian Americans. A 2022 Pew survey provided the prevalence estimates for Nonbinary and Binary Transgender Americans. The value for Asexual Americans was calculated from the results of a research survey conducted in 2020.

As you can clearly see in the bar graph, Bisexual remains the largest LGBT identity, by far, with 4.2% of US adults.

 

Comparing Pew's and Gallup's data leads to other insights as well. 

There are enough Nonbinary people (1.0%) to make them about as common Gay (1.4%) and Lesbian (1.0%) Americans.

Collectively, Nonbinary and Binary Transgender people are 1.6% of US adults, more than either Gays (1.4%) or Lesbians (1.0%).

But collectively, there are more Gays and Lesbians (2.4%), than Nonbinary and Binary Transgender people (1.6%).

 

 

In response to my inquiry, Pew also provided me with the percent of US adults who are trans men and trans women.

 

Identity                              US Adults

Trans men                             0.3%

Trans women                        0.3%

 

Collectively, these add up to the 0.6% of binary transgender US adults in Pew’s results.

 

In a previous article, I discussed the number of Asexual Americans. 

 

Previous Coverage: Asexuality in the United States

(Meticulous Musings) 

 

Researchers conducted a survey of US adults, ages 18-70, in 2020. 

The survey found 0.35% of US adults, ages 18 to 70, identify as asexual. 

If you assume no adults over 70 would identify as asexual, which I believe is a fair assumption, that would mean 0.31% of US adults identify as asexual. 

For comparison purposes, let's round this calculated figure to 0.3%.

 

 

Now, we have a three-way tie for the least common LGBT identities we’ve discussed so far.

Trans men, trans women, and asexuals each comprise 0.3% of US adults.

 

 

Gen Z adults

 

Now, let’s compare the data from Gallup and Pew regarding Gen Z Adults. 

Specifically, we're looking at US adults who were ages 18 to 25 in 2022. 

First, it’s worth observing Gallup, like Pew, collected data on gender identity, although they did so in a different way.

Gallup asked people directly, as part of a larger question, whether they identified as transgender.

Pew calculated whether respondents were transgender based on their answers to three related questions.

Gallup found 1.9% of Gen Z adults identify as transgender.

Pew determined 2.8% of Gen Z adults are binary transgender.

These numbers are different, but still relatively close.

I prefer Pew’s gender identity data, because its survey questions focused on gender identity specifically, rather than asking about it as part of a more complex question that primarily asked about sexuality.

 

 

So let’s take a look at the relative sizes of LGBT identities among Gen Z adults.

Identity                 Percent of Gen Z adults         Source

 

Bisexual                          13.1%                               Gallup

Nonbinary                         4.1%                                Pew

Gay                                    3.4%                               Gallup

Binary Trans                      2.8%                                Pew

Lesbian                              2.2%                               Gallup

 

I created a bar graph to illustrate this data, using Flourish. 

Note that the scale of the y-axis is different than in the bar graph above, because this graph contains larger values. 

 

A 2022 Gallup poll provided the prevalence estimates for Bisexual, Gay, and Lesbian Gen Z US adults. A 2022 Pew survey provided the prevalence estimates for Nonbinary and Binary Transgender Gen Z US adults.

 

Once again, bisexual is far and away the largest LGBT identity. 

A total of 13% of Gen Z adults identify as bisexual, which is more than three times as many people who identify as nonbinary, the next largest LGBT identity in this age group.

 

 

Among Gen Z adults, here are the LGBT identities, from largest to smallest: Bisexual, Nonbinary, Gay, Binary Transgender, and Lesbian.

 

So among the youngest generation of US adults, the largest LGBT categories are Bisexual and Nonbinary.

Both of these are identities in the middle of their respective spectrums.

They also receive considerably less attention than the LGBT identities at the ends of those spectrums.

 

Among US adults as a whole, there are more gays and lesbians (2.4%) than nonbinary and binary transgender people (1.6%).

But the opposite is true among Gen Z adults.

Among Gen Z adults, there are more nonbinary and binary transgender people (6.9%) than gays and lesbians (5.6%).

 

 

Examining the Multiplier

 

There is one more interesting way to break down the Gen Z data.

Every LGBT identity is more prevalent among Gen Z adults than among US adults as a whole.

But some identities see a bigger increase than others.

I calculated the multiplier for each LGBT identity by taking the prevalence among Gen Z adults and dividing it by the prevalence among all US adults.

Here is a table of these multipliers with the biggest multipliers at the top and the smallest ones at the bottom.

 

Identity              Gen Z Adults         US Adults         Multiplier

 

Binary Trans             2.8%                     0.6%                  4.67

Trans & NB              6.9%                     1.6%                   4.31

Nonbinary                 4.1%                     1.0%                  4.10

 

Bisexual                   13.1%                     4.2%                 3.12

 

Gay                            3.4%                     1.4%                 2.43

Gay & Lesbian           5.6%                      2.4%                2.33

Lesbian                       2.2%                     1.0%                2.20

 

 

While all LGBT identities are more common among Gen Z adults, transgender and nonbinary identities see the largest proportional increase compared to all US adults.

 

 

Conclusion

 

I threw a lot of numbers at you today.

Let’s sum up, shall we?

The Pew Research Center has determined 1.6% of American adults identify as transgender or nonbinary.

Transgender and nonbinary identity is more common among each younger age group.

There are more nonbinary people (1.0%) than binary transgender people (0.6%) among US adults.

There are roughly as many nonbinary people (1.0%) as lesbians (1.0%) or gays (1.4%), among US adults.

The largest LGBT identities among all US adults are bisexual (4.2%) and gay (1.4%).

A total of 6.9% of Gen Z Adults identify as nonbinary (4.1%) or binary transgender (2.8%). That’s more than 1 in 15 Gen Z adults.

Gen Z adults have a higher prevalence for each LGBT identity, for which we have survey data, compared to US adults as a whole.

The largest LGBT identities among Gen Z adults are bisexual (13.1%) and nonbinary (4.1%).

A total of 13.1% of Gen Z adults identify as bisexual. That’s more than 1 in 10.

That’s the largest prevalence statistic for an individual identity in this series by far, and the only one to break into double digits.

  

I would like to thank the Pew Research Center for providing us with its valuable prevalence data on transgender and nonbinary Americans.

Polling on LGBT identity, like those conducted by Pew and Gallup, give us a better understanding of the size and composition of the LGBT community in the United States, which we wouldn’t be able to have without them.

 

 

In recent years, transgender people have become an increasingly visible minority group in the United States.

Increased visibility has lead to an intense backlash against transgender people from Republican politicians at both the state and federal level.

Information on transgender and nonbinary Americans are all the more important as the US continues to debate important policies concerning transgender rights.

 

 

Hopefully, increased attention for transgender people will lead to greater acceptance, and understanding, in the long run.

Only time will tell.