Source
r/AskSocialScience•
OutFlanked

Relative frequency of transgenderism?

It's easy to find numbers for transgender-identifying percentage of total population, but I'd like to know about relative frequency of trans men vs trans women and haven't been able to find any statistics.

In general, trans women seem more common in the media than trans men, although that's just personal observation.

If there is a notable difference in frequency of trans men vs trans women, are there physiological or sociological theories as to why?

Posted Nov 12, 2014, 11:02 AM UTC

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tiredstars•

The UK government publishes figures on Gender Recognition Certificates split between men and women. From a quick glance, it appears that the majority of these are male to female.

There's no requirement for one of these certificates for the individual to have undergone reassignment surgery, although it is (I assume pretty strong) supporting evidence.

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OutFlankedOP•

Ah, yes, that's great! And the Jan-March 2014 one also notes that "The proportion of certificates granted to people registered female at birth has generally risen over the last two years." I suppose that sort of implies a sociological rather than physiological explanation, but I'd still be interested in any specific work done on that difference if anyone knows of any.

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jirachiex•

According to Julia Serrano, author of Whipping Girl and transwoman, the transition rates for MtF and FtM are roughly equal, and the statistics that we see for MtF transitioning more than FtM is a reporting bias.

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jambaramaMODPublic Education•

Can you cite where the author says that? Thanks!

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jirachiex•

Chapter 2, first paragraph of the section titled "The Media's Transgender Gap".

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jambaramaPublic Education•

Thanks!

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OutFlankedOP•

Oh, just saw this, thanks! If you have it handy, I'd be interested if you'd be prepared to quote the passage?

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arealalpaca•

How would such statistics even exist unless most or all transgender persons disclose how they identify truthfully?

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OutFlankedOP•

It is a bit of a wobbly area for data gathering, because of the reason you mentioned and also because people don't always identify binarily, but I figure that some form of information must exist, because you do see information about combined transgender population, for instance here on page 6. But "transgender" there is segregated and not distinguished as men or women. I think it would be very odd for a survey or other means of data collection to mark someone as transgender, but not also collect their identifying gender.

I also just found this page, which indicates that, in the Netherlands at least, MtF sex-reassignment is about three times as common as FtM. I'm not sure if that's legal reassignment, medical reassignment, or if both numbers would be equivalent, though. In any case, that backs up my intuition, and I'm still curious if there are any sources that might indicate physiological or sociological reasons for the difference.

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jambaramaMODPublic Education•

I'm afraid we've had to remove this post because it is unsourced. Would you mind adding citations which support your claims? Specifically claims about surgery results, media coverage bias, and restrictiveness of gender norms? Once sourced we'd be happy to reinstate the comment. If sources are unavailable for a particular claim, removing the claim would also be appropriate.

Thanks!

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OutFlankedOP•

Agreed on both counts. That sort of cultural bias of what "flies in the face" is exactly why I'm interested how real numbers would compare to what we notice/what is shown to us because of those gender norms.

I wasn't actually sure if the article with the relative figures refers to surgical or just legal reassignment, but I take it from your response you think that it implies surgical? Looking at news articles now it appears as of last year you could legally change your gender in the Netherlands without surgery, meaning that at the time those statistics were gathered legal reassignment would imply surgical, so yeah, those numbers are definitely no good.

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Sloph•

Yep, I did assume that it meant surgical. Most places, at least in the US, you need to have had surgery to be able to make the legal change. IIRC there are even a small handful of states where you can't change it at all. Glad to hear the Netherlands doesn't require surgery anymore

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