NATIONWIDE — The Williams Institute at UCLA estimated that there are 1.4 million transgender people in the United States. That is only a guess. However, if that number is accurate, “and all transgender people in the U.S. lived together in one place, that city would be America’s eighth largest city,” states GLAAD, a nonprofit focused on LGBTQ advocacy and cultural change.

What does “transgender” mean?

The term describes people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. 

“Gender identity is a person’s internal, personal sense of being a man or a woman (or boy or girl.),” GLAAD said. “For transgender people, the sex they were assigned at birth and their own internal gender identity do not match.”

A 2021 Gallup poll found that only 31 percent of Americans say they have friends or relatives or coworkers who have told them personally that they are transgender. Far more know someone who is gay or a lesbian.

That is why, advocates say, Trans Awareness Week is so important. This year, it will be observed from Wednesday, November 13 to Tuesday, November 19.

The importance of understanding

“If a stereotypical or defamatory image of a gay or lesbian person appears in the media, viewers can compare it to real people they know,” GLAAD stated on its website. “But when a stereotypical or defamatory image of a transgender person appears in the media, the vast majority of viewers have no real-life comparison and may assume it is accurate.”

Transgender people face high levels of violence, discrimination and poverty. The U.S. Trans Survey (USTS) is a community-based survey developed with individuals as well as organizations with strong connections to trans people and communities throughout the United States, according to its website. The survey found that the trans community experiences unemployment at twice the rate of the general population, with rates for trans people of color up to four times the national unemployment rate. 

“Transgender people are also four times more likely to live in poverty. Ninety percent of trans people report experiencing harassment, mistreatment or discrimination on the job,” GLAAD noted.

“Transgender individuals are less likely to be insured than both the lesbian, gay, bisexual and general population,” according to the American Medical Association (AMA). For those with health insurance, “25 percent of transgender individuals who sought coverage for hormones in the past year were denied and 55 percent of those who sought coverage for transition-related surgery in the past year were denied.

“Improving access to gender-affirming care is an important means of improving health outcomes for the transgender population,” the AMA added. 

A study from the Williams Institute found that more than 40 percent of transgender adults in the U.S. have attempted suicide and 81 percent have considered it. 

Significant policy changes have brought greater equality for people who are trans, GLAAD said, including the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock. “That landmark decision—in a case brought by, among others, transgender plaintiff Aimee Stephens—found that Title VII’s prohibition on sex-based discrimination prohibits discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation.”

However, the organization also notes that anti-LGBTQ activists have begun to aggressively shift toward targeting transgender people, and especially transgender youth. 

In February 2021, the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, as well as other groups, released the Promise to America’s Children, a document that GLAAD describes as the “blueprint for anti-trans bills introduced in legislatures across the country.” Bills considered anti-trans deny gender-affirming health care (including to minors), exclude people from updating driver’s licenses to reflect a change in gender,  whether trans women and girls can participate in women’s and girls’ sports, and more. 

The Human Rights Campaign cited Oklahoma, Texas and South Carolina, which considered banning care for transgender people up to 26 years of age.

Translegislation.com, which tracks anti-trans bills, documented 662 state and federal bills. Of those bills, 492 failed, 125 are active and 45 bills passed.

For more information about transgender rights and backlash, visit www.glaad.org.