How Many Adults and Youth Identify as Transgender in the United States?

Executive Summary

In this report, we use the best available data to provide new estimates of the size and characteristics of the U.S. population, aged 13 and older, who identify as transgender. Data come from the 2021- 2023 Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and the 2021 and 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS).

Key Findings

• Over 2.8 million adults (aged 18 and older) and youth (aged 13 to 17) identify as transgender in the United States, or 1.0% of those aged 13 and older.
• Among U.S. adults, 0.8% (over 2.1 million people) identify as transgender. Among youth aged 13 to 17 in the U.S., 3.3% (about 724,000 youth) identify as transgender.
• Of the 2.1 million adults who identify as transgender, 32.7% (698,500) are transgender women, 34.2% (730,500) are transgender men, and 33.1% (707,100) are transgender nonbinary adults.
• We confirm trends based on age found in our prior estimates and other prior research that people who identify as transgender are younger on average than the U.S. population.
  • Youth aged 13 to 17 comprise 25.3% of those who identify as transgender (aged 13 and older) compared to 7.7% of the U.S. population.
  • Young adults aged 18 to 24 comprise 28.9% of those who identify as transgender (aged 13 and older) compared to 10.7% of the U.S. population.
  • Young adults aged 18 to 24 are significantly more likely to identify as transgender (2.72%) than those aged 35 to 64 (0.42%) and those aged 65 and older (0.26%).
• The race and ethnicity distribution of adults and youth who identify as transgender appears similar to the U.S. population. Race/ethnicity estimates for adults in this report reflect trends from prior research that found Latinx people, American Indian or Alaska Native, and biracial and multiracial groups appear more likely to identify as transgender than White people. Our youth estimates do not reflect that trend for White and Latinx youth. However, differences based on race/ethnicity among youth and adults are not statistically significant.
• At the regional and state levels, regional percentages of adults aged 18 and older who identify as transgender are similar across regions and range from 0.7% in the South to 0.9% in the Northeast. State percentages range from 0.4% in New Mexico to 1.2% in Minnesota.
• Regional percentages of youth aged 13 to 17 who identify as transgender are similar across regions and range from 3.2% in the South to 3.4% in the Midwest. State percentages range from 2.5% in Delaware to 3.6% in Hawaii.

Since 2011, Williams Institute scholars have published a series of reports describing estimates of the population size and characteristics of individuals who identify as transgender in the United States. During this time, substantial advancements have been made in the quality and availability of data about transgender people from population-based surveys. Overall, our estimates for adults have remained relatively steady over time, but there are notable changes in our new estimates. In prior estimates, there have been no statistically significant differences between age groups for adults in the percentage of those who identify as transgender. Our current estimates confirm prior trends and show that the youngest adult age groups are now significantly more likely to identify as transgender than older age groups. Our current data source for our new national youth estimate (2023 YRBS) represents the best data we have ever utilized to estimate the number of youth (aged 13 to 17) who identify as transgender nationally (just over 724,000). The data sources and analytic methods for our youth estimates have changed over time. Comparisons over time should not be made given these changes.

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