The Composition and Demographics of the Growing Trans Population

Justathought

I see an increase in visibility as positive. It means less are suffering in silence. You are also right about news stories, The Times in particular appear a bit obsessed to the point of stalking. Invariably most of the stories are click bait and paint trans people in a negative light. After all, trans woman / man gets up, goes to work and does their shopping on the way home isn't going to sell papers.

As for people falling off the radar after treatment I don't think this is unusual. Most trans people will visit their GP once a year or so post surgery to have their bloods done and have their medication titrated appropriately if required. That the majority go on to lead a reasonably happy life is supportive of them after years and years of trying other things to try and align the mind with the body they've arrived at a point where the current pathway appears to suggest they've had much more success in aligning the body to the mind.

Of course, the voice of detransitioners (ones that have been diagnosed and treated) are important ones. I'm not sure the de transition rate is any higher than any other surgical regret? The only reliable information I can find suggests it is between 1 and 2 percent. De sisters should also be heard but, to allow desisters(ones that were never diagnosed or treated) a loud voice in trying to influence the medical treatment of those that really do need it would in my opinion be unfair.

I know self Id is the subject of debate but, I didn't know that it had been passed into law? Self ID appears to have been around in name for decades. I personally don't think it should change apart from reducing the cost and changing the spousal veto to a position where neither party can keep their spouse in a marriage that they don't want to be in or foyer either party to be in a position to delay the granting of a GRC. Otherwise, I think the current system works well even if it s a bit cumbersome.

Notturningintopoweranger

I suppose our TFL experiences are different. Variety is the spice of life so it's not a bad thing.

I think you're right about noticing trans women more than men as in general the physical transition for F2M is much more successful on the surface at allowing them to go under the radar. I suspect that is to do with the power of testosterone. I still don't see many though and those that I do see are normally dressed in an effort to blend in. There has definitely been an increase in referrals for GD, personally I'm not overly concerned by that, I'd rather people get help than suffer in silence? I know that is not likely to be a popular opinion here but, it's what I have to offer I'm afraid.

Of course there are cross dressers and tranvestites around too who by their nature are trying to stand out so these do probably muddy the waters a little and I think for many that is the picture in their mind when they think of a transsexual. Of course, reality is very different.

Bickerinbattle

I did not say it isn't possible to convince someone, I said it was unlikely. The two statements differ in their meaning but I'm glad I could clear that up for you.

You make a good point about co-morbidities and I'm personally a fan of thorough exploration of medical presentations. That is not to say that I don't believe that GD can co-exist with other conditions for example aspergers. But, having a particular condition shouldn't in my opinion be a justification to ignore GD and hope it goes away anymore than you would disregard a presentation of chest pain in a person with other conditions.

I find it difficult to believe that clinicians are telling children in the UK that they are born in the wrong body. Perhaps a FOI request to GIDS would clear that up. That's not to say somebody isn't saying it and it may well be how some children articulate their feelings at a given time. Personally that particular trope isn't for me but, then I have enough respect to take the child seriously and not rubbish or minimize their feelings at what must be a very difficult time for them.

With regards to using being trans as a cover for homosexuality I find that difficult to understand. Many trans people are in fact homosexual so it doesn't sit easily with me. Coupled with UK society seemingly being more comfortable with gay people than with trans people I personally don't subscribe to your view.

With regards to blockers i don't share your concerns but, I'm not going to advocate or speak against their use. As for 100% of children on blockers going on to cross sex hormonal treatment I suspect you a right. What I would ask though is how many are on blockers and are they only the ones who are absolutely steadfast in their belief and persistent in their presentation of GD?

You are right to say that trans healthcare can result in long term effects. I would add to that by saying for many those long term effects result in them having a quality of life that is of a far higher standard than one with the absolute misery that the dysphoria brings. As for a rise in suicidal ideation I'm not surprised. The onset of puberty for many trans people can feel like a prison sentence and is certainly thought to exacerbate the symptoms of dysphoria.

If you believe the NHS is doing harm to trans people by treating them medically and surgically perhaps they would be happy to hear from you. You may know something the experts in the field don't.

Charley,

You are right to say that the umbrella has widened in recent years to include people who would have have otherwise been described as cross dressers or having some form of fetish. That probably dose pose a problem for statistics however, the incidence of being diagnosed as transsexual as per the ICD is still very low. I am a disappointed that you claim I say there has been no rise as that is a misrepresentation of what I wrote. Whether that misrepresentation is malicious or down to a misunderstanding is likely open to debate.

I have not asserted that gender dysphoria is a non problem. The fact that we have a whole section of the NHS dedicated to medical and surgical intervention to make the lives of those with GD more bare able gives rise to the idea that it is a problem and one the UK deems worthy of treating seriously using international standards of care as a guideline. That said both the adult and child services in the UK are regarded world wide as having a very cautious approach to treatment and this in my personal opinion is in line with even now the UK still being quite a socially conservative society albeit one that is slowly dragging itself forward.

When you say children are being medicalised without mental health support that doesn't fit with what I've read on either the GIDS website or the comments of parents with trans children. Perhaps I have the wrong end of the stick but, a common experience I've read seems to be, a child presents over a long period of time with distress. Many of them seem to hide it for a long time due to the not unreasonable fear of family rejection. If and when they do speak up it is likely to result in a trip to a GP of which many will suggest waiting to see what develops. If the symptoms persist they are likely to be referred to camhs and eventually to GIDS. I believe from that referral the current wait for GIDS is between 18 months and 2 years. Quite a long time to be in severe distress in my opinion but it is what it is. Once they arrive at GIDS there is likely to be several appointments over a period of about 18 months before they are considered being seen by a pediatric endocrinologist with regards to the suitability of blockers. I am not endocrinologist or a peadiatrician so I'll leave the blocker debate to others. Personally I feel they benefit a very small number of people and have no particular opposition to their use.

Again to suggest I would infer that rape is not a problem is in my opinion a misrepresentation of my position and does a disservice to your otherwise reasoned arguments. For clarity rape is a heinous crime and the low conviction rate in the UK leaves me with a feeling of disgust. Hopefully that clears that up for you.

Statsgeek - I am working on a purely anecdotal basis and that’s all I can offer! I am on the transport network a lot - ie not just a commute, working all around the city and beyond, so can be on a number of different lines each day. I am struck by how frequently I see trans women (I have only noticed trans men on occasion) and did say once or twice a month not week.

I am not counting who I consider to be non-binary (a probably reasonable response to conformative gender norms). I don’t know who is trans, who is exploring gender etc, but there does seem to me to be an increasing pattern of men who are adhering to societal expectations of what women ‘should’ wear/how ‘women’ should behave and I have noticed it day to day.

Further, you can’t just look at the numbers of children being treated — you have to also include in that examination the extent of harm.

The extent of harm here is very very large: the Tavistock itself has documented a rise in self-harm on children placed on puberty blockers; other researchers have noted as much as a 10-point drop in IQ; endocrinologists are finding that children on puberty blockers miss the window of maturation in which the bones lay down the necessary density for adult skeletal function and now they are seeing women in their 20s with the bone-density of very elderly women — in the States, some of these women are working toward a class-action suit against the drug-maker.

100% of children on puberty blockers go on to cross-sex-hormones, and as a stats person, 100% of anything ought to give you pause. No medical diagnosis is ever 100% accurate across a population.

Once these children go from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones, they are rendered sterile. From there: for girls: elective double mastectomy, with its risks and potential lifelong side effects and, after five years on testosterone, most likely a necessary hysterectomy and removal of ovaries due to atrophy caused by male hormones. One side effect of the T almost never mentioned is the likelihood of, from then on, extremely pain at orgasm. These are lifelong effects arising out of actions begun when the child was too young even to drive.

For boys, orchiectomy and inversion of the penis to create an opening.
Extremely strong possibility of loss of sexual response. Lifelong.

These are major harms. I can’t even begin to guess what an actuary would assign as value of these harms, were a judgment being negotiated in court. Millions of pounds.

To say that it’s not possible to convince someone they’re trans contradicts direct testimony by detransitioners, stats.

You’re not paying close enough attention to the social contagion taking place and being described online amongst tweens and teenagers.

Nor to the hamstringing of therapists who cannot probe why a child believes their trans, because that’s considered conversion therapy.

For some children, the idea that they were born in the wrong body is being offered up, or being grasped at, as the one-size-fits-all reason for their distress — when that distress may well instead be caused by abuse, fear of their own homosexuality, all sorts of issues within the family or school, etc.

There is something called iatrogenesis. In the 80s, it led to many mental health patients being diagnosed with multi-personality disorder. For several years, specialized inpatient MPD clinics opened and MPD therapists made a LOT of money of those so diagnosed. And several people claiming MPD diagnosis became famous, in those days before the internet, on talk shows and magazines.

Now, today, that condition is called Dissociative Identity Disorder and recognized as being extremely rare, and therapists are taught that it’s something that can be iatrogenically induced if they’re not careful in treating patients with certain issues.

If MPD can be iatrogenically induced, then yes absolutely gender identity issues, a sense of oneself in “the wrong body” can be.

And children really really want to please the adults in their lives. That’s what makes them so vulnerable.

Crossdressing is a fetish, a paraphilia in and of itself, statsgeek1. I am neither claiming nor believing that all these men identify as trans, nor that the transvestic fetish of all of these men includes violating women's boundaries. What I am pointing out is that the trans umbrella has grown to include crossdressers not suffering from gender dysphoria who were not previously considered to be trans. And that this might be swelling the numbers. I am surprised that with your user name you are not understanding the difference. Or that far more than just 4 to 6% of males have a paraphilia - transvestism is just one of the more common and pertinent to this debate.

As for your assertion about this being a non-problem and no rise in children identifying as trans among children in care and therefore there is nothing to worry about - when the prevalence of children with gender dysphoria is 6 in 100,000 but a single school in the UK has over 70 children with gender dysphoria and our national services for children who suffer from gender dysphoria are reporting an increase of more than a thousand percent, there is most definitely something going on. (And fyi, the social workers on the ground who are working with our children in care are also reporting an increase large enough that they are sharing their concerns across the country.)

That the absolute numbers remain small for now does not mean we can ignore this. My kid's school has gone from having no children who identify as trans just two years ago to having several. Two children I know privately are now identifying as trans, one of whom is family. I know several parents in this position (and they are not campaigners). These children are being medicalised without first receiving the necessary mental health support.

And as long as just one child is harmed in this way, I will speak out. That's what we do on Mumsnet.

By your weird reasoning, we should also not consider rapes at school to be a problem. They only affect a tiny number of children in care, after all.

@mayomaynot

I'm sorry I didn't answer earlier I will always try to reply.

I appreciate your headline figure of a 4000% increase. This really ones make it sound as if our children are in danger of being captured and turned in their places of education.

I'm pretty confident in saying, firstly, it's very unlikely that you can force or convince someone that they are are trans. Let's be honest, society as a whole isn't really that accepting and most who come out as trans do so on the knowledge that they are likely to lose family and friends based on nothing more than a medical diagnosis and external presentation.

Anyway, I digress so let us hit the stats. In five financial years we've gone from 0.005 to 0.02% of under 18's in the UK seeking help for gender dysphoria.

In comparison with many childhood presentations this is very low. What we are saying is, even with the increase is that 99.98% of children don't ever present to a medical professional complaining of the symptoms of gender dysphoria.

In comparison, there are around 90,000 children in care in the UK due to neglect and other issues. If Stepanie Davis-Arai and Debbie Hayton et.al have convinced you that 'the children are being transed ' at an alarmingly increasing rate due to some trans cabal I think you've been misled.

There is clearly an increase and the numbers amongst young girls are especially interesting but, the numbers are still very small. Even then it is widely reported in GC circles that 80% of those referred do not receive a diagnosis of gender dysphoria leaving the number that go on to treatment in the hundreds.

The majority of people presenting at A and E with chest pain haven't suffered a heart attack. Would you advocate on that basis to deny the ones that have had a heart attack treatment? Not the best comparison I know but, it's worthy of thought.

Charley,

You can make comments about there being 4-6% of males having a fetish. I suspect I could reasonably confidently state more than 10% of me between 16 and 25 would be turned on by two girls kissing.

However, this in my opinion is anecdote and nothing more. It does admittedly pass for fact in certain forums and often without question. However, what remains is that the only reliable statistical information we have is that there were just short of 9000 under 18's referred to GIDS in 5 years and there are around 13000 adults waiting to see a GIC. Given that we have a population of around 65million I am confident in saying that there has been a rise in the incidence of being or seeking treatment for being transsexual in the UK but, the numbers involved are still very small.

Charley,

What it is to be trans is in reality a question for the psychiatrists and medical doctors who make a diagnosis. There's lots of rhetoric and misinformation from both sides of the debate and I suspect ultimately people from both sides who occupy the centre ground will be influential in decision making.

Ultimately, my daily experience suggests that this particular debate hasn't really captured the thoughts of the the nation. Let's be honest, groups such as Transgender Trend seem in my opinion to be pushing against the tide. There's around 90,000 children in the UK currently in care and being gender dysphoric doesn't appear to be a significant contributor. Coupled with a distribution of stickers that can only be described as hateful towards a tiny minority I personally don't think they've covered themselves in glory.

Perhaps the lack of interest is a result of Brexit being everywhere or perhaps as a nation we've just begrudgingly become more accepting of difference.

One trans person I discussed this with and who's been involved in the trans community for several decades called what is happening now "the crossdressers' revenge" at being excluded from trans spaces for all this time. It could maybe explain the rhetoric that sees so many of the more extreme trans rights activists calling transsexuals "truscum" and declaring that you don't need to have gender dysphoria to be trans.

Further to that, I'm going to push the boat out and make a huge assumption and please forgive me if I'm wrong. We're in a city of 8 million and I myself, make on average 12 tube journeys per week. I can probably expect to visually encounter (not necessarily take notice of) around perhaps several thousand people per journey. I personally can't say other than the odd occasion that I 'see and notice' a trans person. Those that I do see normally look as they are doing their level best to blend into the background. My personal experience and the statistics that I can get my hands on do suggest a noticeable recent increase in frequency. However, when I take into consideration the influence of the Internet on a group of people who may have chosen to remain in a closet I'm not feeling shocked at the statistics available.

I do worry that there are websites dedicated to stopping treatment, discouraging acceptance and encouraging general negativity for a minute number of vulnerable children. That's my worry though and I do tend to find that away from social media it's reasonably common and certainly not a view to be ashamed of.

My mind is open and I'm always willing to have it changed. Thank you for engaging.

4 to 6% of the adult male population have a transvestic fetish. At the lower end of the estimate, that's about a million men across the UK. They used to be excluded from trans groups, but as they now fall under the trans umbrella, the much larger prevalence of crossdressing rather than that of transsexualism of either form (HSTS or AGP) may explain some of the increase.

I think we probably live in a similar if not the same city. Now, I can only deal with figures that are readily available so, I'll take a mixture of TFL stats (available on line) and your personal experience. Admittedly the sum I arrive at will not be accurate but, I suspect if the reasonable person test were applied I'd be on the right side.

So her we go, TFL says the support about 5 million journeys per day by tube. You personally see one or two trans people per week. If every passenger had the same experience we are now talking about an awful lot of trans people or people perceived to be trans using the tube at any given time or the trans people you see are very visible. Either is possible.

Personally, I feel anecdote is no substitute for numbers and having trans friends isn't statistical support for numbers. I have trans friends too but in reality they are by no means common amongst the 8 million that I live.

If you've evidence of a number equal to what would seemingly be disproportionate amounts of trans people using TFL, National Express West Miidlands, First Scotrail , Stagecoach Manchester or Arrival Merseyside/Northen rail and whatever the main thing is in Leeds etc... I'm really excited to look at the numbers involved and form an opinion.

Alternatively, if we are going to base the numbers on an anecdotal report influenced by a suspicion/mistrust of trans people I'm not so sure we will get too far.

I too live in a city with a population of 8 million and see trans people frequently, once or twice a month at least - usually on our transport system, where I’m passing thousands of people a week. I did not see nearly so many trans people ten years ago. Members of my family have many trans friends, particularly those under 25.

Yes, a 4000% increase in something that requires medical treatment should always be a cause for concern, especially when there doesn't seem to be a clear reason for the increase.

There has been an increase that so large and rapid its triggered an inquiry.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/09/16/minister-orders-inquiry-4000-per-cent-rise-children-wanting/

I'm not sure I'd agree with it being common in any section of society apart from a GIC or Charing Cross, Parkside or Brighton Nuffield hospital on particlar 7 day stretches. I work in a profession where I scome into Contact with a reasonable number of vulnerable adults and children but, I would really struggle to describe being trans amongst that population as being common. For balance though, I would go as far to say that the often quoted incidence of 0.3% is a bit of an under estimate. I think there are plenty gender non conforming children and adults who can probably muddy the waters but, as far as I can see, the only reliable figures to date are the number of children and adults being referred. As it stands the ball park figures seem to suggest around just short of 9000 children in the last five financial years. Adults are a more difficult proposition but, if you take a GIC waiting list of approximately 13000 (which is likely around 2-3 years of referrals) and assume roughly 6500 GP referrals per year multiplied by an average 75 year life span and compare it against around 700,000 live births per year in the UK you could assume (off the back of a smokes packet) that around 0.9% of the adult population present with some form of gender dysphoria to a medical professional. That is likely quite an increase over time from 10, 20 and 30 et.al years ago.

I think a general slow increase in societal acceptance of transsexual people and an increase in accessible information to the individual, especially with regards to the Internet has driven this but, that is only a personal opinion. Even so, all that said it would suggest around 99.1% and possibly higher of the U.K. population don't have an internal struggle between their actual sex and how the see their gender.

If it matters I live and work in a city wwith a population of approximately 8 million and my encounters with tans people are still virtually non existent. If I were to apply a test to see if the change in frequency between 2010 and 2020 I am going to push the boat out and suggest the numbers would not reveal a statistical significance. H

Happy to hear your thoughts though.

Those numbers are quite revealing. Considering that there are somewhere in the region of 12.5 million under 18's in the UK it suggests that even with the recent increases in referrals (which is interesting) that somewhere around 99.98% of children are not being referred to GIDS after presentations of gender dysphoria. That seems to tie in with me very rarely encountering a transgender person and never having encountered a transgender child.