John Oliver

[Huevos_Rancheros]

He had a discussion on the transgendered community on last Sunday's program:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmoAX9f6MOc

While I am all for equal rights for everyone, what I found most interesting is he quoted a study that the US TS population could be 700,000.

I wish this were true but I think the TS population that is public must be a lot less than this number. My guess is it is less than 100,000.

Does anyone have a better estimate of the TS population?

[JenniferParisHusband]

Actually, I think the 700,000 figure is a little small. He is using the UCLA study numbers, which rely on surveys of a smaller sample of people, and extrapolating. This means people acknowledging their sexual identity, which a lot of people don't do. I imagine it is much much higher.

https://helenhill.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/ucla-study-estimates-approximate-700000-transgender-people-in-the-usa/

[Wendy Summers]

This was a great piece by This Week Tonight. Props to how well they handled the issue.

Yeah his data seems to be based on the UCLA study. Here's another article which discusses some of the challenges of gathering data on the transgender population.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-we-dont-know-the-size-of-the-transgender-population/

I've spent a lot of time researching transgender population data for an article I was pitching and as you dig it's apparent how little data has actually been collected on the topic.

[maxpower]

Great piece. Thanks for posting it.

[EZWind]

When GoT was still running, it was a tossup btwn them and LWT for best thing on HBO
...now that Game is on hiatus, Oliver wins hands down...this show is excellent every week, and may even give his old boss a run for his money as the best thing on TV period