Comments on: The Prevalence of Transgenderism

By: Sumit

Sumit — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 02:38:47 +0000

What type of therapy did your child urdgneo. My daughter always wanted to be a boy and not knowing much about TG at the time we went down the therapy road. From CBT to psyco analysis to past life regression and more. We were deternined to explore all routes before irrereversible changes were made. We allowed her to dress and express as a boy for over four years she even came out to her friends. At the end of it she now fully accepts her femine self and has no fear or negativity around being female. She also accepts her masculine self and can work with it in balance with her femine self. I get really annoyed when I hear that therapy does not work especially when I hear it from so called support groups. For some it will work and should not be discouraged. Generally trans gender therapists are not the people to go to as they have a very narrow focus, and the criteria set by DSM are not specific enough any Tom boy with low self esteem could fit the criteria.

By: A.B. Kaplan

A.B. Kaplan — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:45:18 +0000

This appeared on the WPATH listserve not long ago:

“One finding in this Finnish twin study is therefore quite interesting (Algars, Santtila, & Sandnabba: Conflicted Gender Identity, Body Dissatisfaction, and Disordered Eating in Adult Men and Women. Sex Roles, 2010;63:118–125). The authors did not focus on the epidemiology of gender identity variants but on body dissatisfaction and eating problems associated with ‘conflicted gender identity’. The interesting part of the paper, in this case, is their description of the subsample formation: “Out of the 9,532 participants in the original data collection, 6.0% (n=571, 349 women and 222 men) reported having felt they were a member of the opposite gender and/or having wished they had the body of the opposite gender.” These were responses to ‘life-time’ questions: ‘have you ever felt…’, and ‘have you ever wished…’ The participants in the original data collection were 18–33-year-old Finnish twins and their over 18-year-old siblings (6,201 women and 3,331 men).
”

that’s the only twin study I know of off-hand, but I haven’t done a search on it.

By: Claudia Ciano-Boyce

Claudia Ciano-Boyce — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 12:50:18 +0000

I’m a psychologist interested in the incidence of transgender individuals who are identical twins. Specifically, in the case I am working with, the incidence of one twin becoming FtoM trans and the other twin heterosexual. Any statistics on that?

Claudia Ciano-Boyce

By: Sarah L

Sarah L — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:47:21 +0000

GENDER VARIANCE IN THE UK: PREVALENCE, INCIDENCE, GROWTH and DISTRIBUTION
(June 2009)

Gender Identity Research and Education Society
http://www.gires.org.uk/assets/Medpro-Assets/GenderVarianceUK-report.pdf

By: Lisa Olsson

Lisa Olsson — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:41:10 +0000

There was a survey in New Zealand in the end of 2008 that compared all passportholders to those that had changed their gendermarker on the passport to or from X. (http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048670802345490) Their results showed a prevalence of 1:6364, much higher than all those in your table.

In sweden about 700 people has been “allowed” to change legal gender and undergo SRS, the total releant population (18-65) are ~5M. Which would mean a prevalence of about 1:7140. And the number that ask for this each year are still rising. (Numbers are from offical statistics)

I also do remeber a UK survey done 2009 that estimated that the lifetime prevalence of TS are ten times higher than the current SRS-prevalence.

By: Henry Hall

Henry Hall — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:41:27 +0000

The only hard figure I have seen that is even slightly recent and not a matter of psychobabble interpretation is that the Army of Thailand reported in 2006 that about one in 150 Thai citizens with male birth certificates or immigration papers who are of age (late teens) and who would otherwise be required to perform military duty is ineligible due to being Kathoey. In practice this means castrated.

On one hand a very small proportion of castrated people will not be TG, but likely at least an equal proportion in Thailand will be TG but not castrated. The figures are slightly confounded by the fact that some Kathoeys are excused military service for other reasons so their Kathoey status becomes moot and might not be noted.

Thus, I think we can reasonably say the prevalence of transgenderism in MTFs is at least 150. And as time passes there is every suggestion that MTF and FTM transsexualism occur in equal numbers, it is just that MTFs are more visible and more diagnosed.

As to the prevalence of GID, that is probably far rarer, because most transsexual people do not have disordered gender identities, though a very small number do.