How Many Adults Identify as Transgender in the United States? (2016 report) · Jan 2014 – Dec 31, 2014 · US national and 50-state estimates, based on 19 states that fielded the BRFSS gender identity module
Methodology
- Pollster
- Williams Institute (UCLA) academic
- Sponsor
- The Williams Institute
- Fielded
- Jan 2014 – Dec 31, 2014
- Population
- adults 18+
- Sample size
- 151,456
- Sample frame
- probability RDD
- Mode
- telephone (landline and cellular), interviewer-administered; national estimates produced by multilevel regression with poststratification from the 19-state data
- Margin of error
- not applicable in the usual sense - the report publishes Bayesian credible intervals around each state estimate
- Weighting
- BRFSS state weights; the Williams Institute applied multilevel regression and poststratification to generate state and national estimates with credible intervals
- Geography
- US national and 50-state estimates, based on 19 states that fielded the BRFSS gender identity module
- Base notes
- 151,456 BRFSS respondents in the 19 opt-in states answered the transgender question. The 19 states were Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Sources
Verification note. This is a population estimate derived from a probability health survey, not an opinion poll - it belongs in the database because it establishes the denominator that opinion items about the trans population are measured against, and because the BRFSS item wording is itself a much-debated measurement decision. Question wording, response rate, state list and the raw 0.52% figure were read from the report's methodology appendix. Superseded by the 2022 and 2025 Williams updates, which are separate records.
Figures below are transcribed from these documents. Where they disagree with the source, the source governs.
self-identification as transgender on the BRFSS optional gender identity module
If the interviewer is asked for a definition of transgender, they respond: Some people describe themselves as transgender when they experience a different gender identity from their sex at birth. For example, a person born into a male body, but who feels female or lives as a woman would be transgender. Some transgender people change their physical appearance so that it matches their internal gender identity. Some transgender people take hormones and some have surgery. A transgender person may be of any sexual orientation - straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Do you consider yourself to be transgender?
Identify as transgender
0.6%
Yes - consider self transgender
0.5%
Wording notes: single-item self-identification measure rather than the two-step sex-assigned-at-birth plus current-gender approach | the definition is read only on request, so respondents who do not ask may interpret 'transgender' differently | asked by a live interviewer, which is known to depress disclosure relative to self-administered modes
neutral — Neutral wording, but the single-item interviewer-administered design is widely thought to undercount relative to two-step self-administered measures - a measurement limitation rather than a directional lean.