Sources and coverage

Where each record in the atlas comes from, how it was captured, and what the atlas does not cover.

Trans Policy Atlas data: Transitics' CATPALM (built by Aleksandra Vaca, a member of the Trans Data Initiative team) and the team's own research.

Policy records

Transitics / Aleksandra Vaca

Birth certificates, Driver’s licenses, Nonbinary recognition, Bathrooms & facilities, Youth gender-affirming care, Medicaid coverage, Sports participation, Care in prisons, Prison housing.

Trans Data Initiative research

Legal sex definitions.

Researched from primary sources (enacted text, the code on official sites, executive orders, court orders), starting from the Trans Data Initiative legislation tracker's bills. Each determination was checked independently by a second researcher; disputes were settled by a third review. No other tracker's descriptions were used.

Each record names its source and the date it was captured. The atlas shows the most recent capture of each policy area as the current record, and keeps other captures, which are listed on each state's page.

Captures and dates

A date on a record is a capture date: the day a source was retrieved, or the day a primary-source check was done. It is not a legal effective date. Differences in wording or scope between captures are not automatically changes in policy. Effective dates, court orders and the “since” dates sources report are listed on Policy dates.

Legislation

The legislation list is the project's bill tracker. Titles, stages, action histories and text links come from LegiScan, whose data is licensed CC BY 4.0 and used here in modified form. Each bill is listed once, in the year the tracker records it; a bill carried into the second year of a session is not counted again. These counts do not measure unique laws or the people affected. See the bill list.

Coverage limits

“No restriction reported” does not guarantee access. Local rules, federal law, exceptions, age, institution and court orders can change the answer. Adult clinical access, private-provider availability, insurance plan details, local ordinances and federal policy are not comprehensively mapped. Youth care, Medicaid coverage and prison care are separate areas, and none is a map of adult care in general.

Captured sources

430 source captures. Each is a source as it was captured on the date shown.