Five years ago The Williams Institute at UCLA estimated the number of transgender Americans at 700,000...0.3% of the population. That estimation was based on state-level population-based surveys from California and Massachusetts.

The Institute has released a new report.

This report utilizes data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to estimate the percentage and number of adults who identify as transgender nationally and in all 50 states.3 We find that 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender. This figure is double the estimate that utilized data from roughly a decade ago and implies that an estimated 1.4 million adults in the U.S. identify as transgender.4 State-level estimates of adults who identify as transgender range from 0.3% in North Dakota to 0.8% in Hawaii. In addition, due to current state-level policy debates that specifically target and affect transgender students, we provide estimates of the number of adults who identify as transgender by age. The youngest age group, 18 to 24 year olds, is more likely than older age groups to identify as transgender.

The US Census has never sought to identify transgender people.

The states with the largest transgender populations (by percentage) were judged to be Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Oregon, Ohio, Delaware, and Tennessee. The states with the smallest transgender populations were estimated to be North Dakota, Iowa, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Utah, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Kansas and Michigan.

Prior research suggests that individuals who identify as transgender are younger, on average, than non-transgender individuals.8 As expected, we nd that younger adults are more likely than older adults to identify as transgender. An estimated 0.7% of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 identify as transgender. Lower percentages of older adults identify as transgender, with 0.6% of adults age 25 to 64 and 0.5% of adults age 65 or older identifying as transgender.

Hawaii again leads the nation, with 0.89% of young adults (18-24) identifying as transgender, while California has the largest population of transgender young adults...at 33,450.

Our current best estimate of the percentage of adults who identify as transgender in the United States is double that of the estimate produced by Gary J. Gates in 2011. Several reasons may account for this difference. A perceived increase in visibility and social acceptance of transgender people may increase the number of individuals willing to identify as transgender on a government-administered survey. The Gates estimate was based on data from only two states with very small samples. The current study analyzes population-based data from 19 states that identify transgender individuals. This provides larger samples and a wealth of information about transgender-identified adults not previously available. As a result, more sophisticated estimation procedures are now possible that produce more detailed and robust estimates than were possible in 2011. As new data collection efforts emerge at the state and national levels, estimates can continue to be refined to improve our understanding of the size and characteristics of the transgender population.

The report calculated 95% credible intervals to provide an upper bound of 2.3 million transgender Americans (0.95% of the population) and a lower bound of 854,000 transgender Americans (0.36% of the population).

Although not included in the state data, of course, the District of Columbia is estimated to have between 0.5% and 12.63% of its adult population identifying as transgender.

Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, an advocacy and education organization based in Washington, welcomed the new estimates and predicted that, in time, they would continue to rise. As she looked at the state figures, she pointed to North Carolina, currently ground zero for contested legislation about bathroom accessibility and antidiscrimination policies. Researchers estimated that state’s population of transgender people to be 44,750.