Originally Posted by
peggygee
Originally Posted by
AGTFB
Whoa! 1 in 10000? I always heard it was 1 in 250.
If it's 1 in 10000, how are there so many of them out there?
AGTFB
That is is an interesting question.
I believe the answer lies in the fact that this APA article is quoting the rate
found in Western countries.
However if you factor in countries like Thailand, Brazil, etc, then this may
skew the results.
Also, with the Internet, and rapid air travel, you tend to have one
large 'global village'. Thus the 'hottie' ten thousand miles away, is on your
desktop in a nanosecond, or in your arms after a short airline flight
How prevalent are transgender people?
It is difficult to accurately estimate the prevalence of transgender people in Western countries. As many as 2-3% of biological males engage in cross-dressing, at least occasionally. Current estimates of the prevalence of transsexualism are about 1 in 10,000 for biological males and 1 in 30,000 for biological females. The number of people in other transgender categories is unknown.
This is a fascinating subject indeed, Peggygee. I've posted some research (by others) and speculation on that research (by myself and others) in this forum and other forums in the past.
I've read various estimates from various sources (some of which have been discussed on HA, in VR's forum, and on TGT), ranging from 1:30,000 to 1:5 (the first seems extremely low, the second absurdly high; the most credible estimates range between 1:250 to 1:3000). Lynn Conway (
http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conw...successes.html) estimates 30-40,000 post-op TS in the US; she also has the figure of 50,000 TS in Malaysia (a country of 22 million). Due to differing social attitudes, estimates of the TS population in a country like Thailand are probably much more accurate than in the US, where so many are stealth. Thailand's 300,000 translates to 1:206; I doubt that the US ratio of TS to the general population is nearly as great, but 1:3000 seems reasonable (+/- 100,000). It's frustrating though to search for any real data relative to the US demongraphics because there is so little hard data to work with.
However, what it means to be transgendered, as you indicate, varies from culture to culture. Many
Brazilian transsexuals (those who have had extensive surgeries and HRT to emulate their ideal female form) are not transgendered in the sense that we may use the term: witness Lisa Lawer reverting to male (and she's not the only one). In Thailand, it's commonplace for katoey to not even have breast implants but simply dress very feminine and wear their hair very long, yet they are psychologically transgendered (cf. Male, Female and Transgender: Stereotypes and Self in Thailand by Sam Winter and Nuttawut Udomsak,
http://www.symposion.com//ijt/ijtvo06no01_04.htm). (Of course, many katoey do indeed have feminization surgery and GRS, there's the full spectrum.)
This is only the initial stab at estimating the ratio of transgendered to the general population, and it may be far off for any number of reasons, but it's a start. The best estimates, for instance, show a ratio of 1:206 for Thailand (approx. 300,000 TS out of a base population of over 62 million) and 1:270 for the Philippines (approx. 250,000 out of 80 million), which is within the range I propose (+/- 1:300), though the cultural differences between these southeast Asian countries are extreme in many ways (all TS in the Philippines are considered gay, while Thais are considered a "third sex" or katoey, distinct from gay men and more accepted socially--though not without limitations).
In other words, regardless of what the known transgender population of any country is, there must be a statistically valid ratio of transgendered to normally gendered persons in any population, and I'm suggesting that that ratio is on the order of 1:300 or even 1:200. However, many people may not even realize that they are transgendered (as evidenced by the number of TS who comment on their confusion prior to beginning their transition, going through gay phases and the like because they don't understand their own innate nature). Moreover, some people may become transsexual without actually being transgendered (this is reportedly the case among many of Brazil's TS population, where many are actually gay men, not transwomen: see Lisa Lawer as an example). Social and cultural patterns, coupled with individual actualization, probably make it impossible to determine the ratio with any precision. But if transgenderism is innate, and especially if it stems from prenatal development (which is appearing to be the case for homosexuality), then it stands to reason that there is a statisical baseline of TG people in the general population.