Forget everything you thought you knew about transgender folks, thanks to a new study sponsored by The Task Force and National Center for Transgender Equality. You can read highlights and download the study here: http://www.thetaskforce.org/...
How breathtaking are the findings? Well, maybe we shouldn't even call these folks "transgender" any more, because 82% of the male to female participants have had or want SRS (sex reasignment surgery) and 87% of the female to male participants have had or want SRS. Transsexuals are generally defined as folks who wish to surgically change sexes... Sounds like this was a survey of transsexuals, not "transgender" folks. The proportion of transsexuals might have been even higher had not the survey makers thrown out the questionaire of every participant who didn't affirmatively answer that they were "transgender" on the first question. So from here on out, I'll use the term "trans" instead of "transgender" out of respect for these folks, except when I'm quoting the study.
On with the myth busting!
Myth: Trans people are HIV+ sluts. The U of Minnesota Program in Human Sexuality even used this myth to get funding for trans AIDs prevention to keep their program funded.
Busted! Trans people are 7 times more likely to be veterans (20%) than HIV+ (3%).
Myth: Trans folks can't pass as their target gender and will always be outed and victimized.
Busted! Half of trans folks are passing. As the saying goes... "we walk among you".
Myth: Trans people are either hookers or drug dealers or both.
Busted! Trans folks are 4 times as likely (50%) to have earned a college degree than engaged in prostitution (11%) and 6 times as likely to have earned a sheepskin than sold drugs (8%).
Myth: Trans folks are too busy fulfilling all of the above myths to vote.
Busted! 89% of trans folks are registered to vote, a rate about 20% higher than the rest of the country. Maybe we should hire them as campaign workers...
Myth: Seems like every week I get another message demanding I do something to help trans prisoners...
Busted! Trans folks are more likely to be veterans, passing, college grads, or registered to vote than jailed (16%). And nearly half of those jailings were for being trans... Take out that oppression and trans folks rate of incarceration is similar to that of the general population.
But reality bites... Here's the bad news:
Trans folks were unemployed at the time of the study at twice the rate (14%) as the general populace (7%)
31% of trans folks are disabled, compared to around 20% of the general population. This stat is especially striking as disability is mostly seen in elders in the general population; Most of the survey participants were between 18 and 44 years of age. Perhaps we're seeing the effects of those hormone mimicing chemicals here?
And the sobering final fact- Trans folks are 24 times as likely (41%) to have attempted suicide as the general populace (1.6%). Bad enough that the sensational mainstream media tells trans folks that they're worthless and can only live lives of failure... We GLBTI folks and lefties need to quit sentencing trans folks to failure with our faulty perceptions of them.
So please read the summary and full report if you have time, and talk up the issue. And to the researchers, we owe you immense gratitude. But remember those thousand or so questionaires that you threw out because the participants wouldn't check the box identifying themselves as "transgender" because they prefer to call themselves transsexual or intersex or whatever? My response is in those questionaires you dumped... Could you please dig them out, crunch the data, and give us the results?