Full results from largest-ever survey of transgender Americans released
AUSTIN (KXAN) — Findings from the 2022 U.S. Trans Survey (USTS) released on June 11 show a “snapshot” of transgender Americans’ lives.
More that 92,000 people — with over 84,000 of those being adults — completed the survey. That’s increased from the nearly 28,000 respondents on the 2015 survey.
The study comes from nonprofit organization Advocates for Trans Equality, or A4TE, which was created after the 2024 merger of the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund.
A4TE Research Director Ankit Rustoki talked to KXAN on Monday about the results.
“It’s the biggest survey of trans people by trans people,” Rustoki said. “We [found] that folks who get to live out their lives authentically, and in public and safely, and with social acceptance, have the best health outcomes. It shows that everyone, including trans people, should have opportunity to live a healthy and happy life, and to be treated with dignity and respect.”
While the USTS’ early results released in 2024, Rustoki said to think of the results as a snapshot of transgender life in 2022.
“It’s important to see these data as like snapshots and time, so we can see how [the] lived experience of trans people has shifted based on the particular context,” he said.
Rustoki said his hope is that the 2022 USTS data becomes “the bedrock” for further study. That’s crucial amid federal cuts to research and the removal of transgender-related questions from other national studies such as the American Community Survey and the census.
“There’s a lot of attacks happening on the trans community now. Trans data is being removed from federal surveys, and funding for LGBTQ research is being stripped away,” he said. “The survey is a critical piece of evidence that we need to continue to build upon so that we can inform policymakers, lawmakers and educators about trans people.”
The 2022 Health and Wellbeing Report can be read here. A4TE expects to have state-level data available in 2026.
