That’s all fair assessment but I think the thing to take from this study is that, even if the % shown isn’t indicative of the total population, the trend seems accurate. There’s definitely a lot more younger people identifying as trans than older people - my theory is that it’s a social contagion and the younger people are more affected. But I agree, the states picked definitely skew the observed % higher. As long as the states are consistent then I think the trend we are seeing can be relied on.
There's a VERY simple, but morbid, reason for that. Queers in general have MUCH higher suicide rates than any other demographic ( I think it's like double or triple compared to everyone else), but transgenders are in a whole other category even compared to other queers. I think it's something like, transgenders are 10-20X more likely to commit suicide by the age of 25-30, and the likelihood increases exponentially with every decade they grow older. VERY few trans people ever actually end up "old" because they usually end up killing themselves way before they could grow old.
Morbid, I know, but that's the main reason it's more prevalent among younger demographics than older. Most of them will kill themselves before they get the chance to get old.
That’s all fair assessment but I think the thing to take from this study is that, even if the % shown isn’t indicative of the total population, the trend seems accurate. There’s definitely a lot more younger people identifying as trans than older people - my theory is that it’s a social contagion and the younger people are more affected. But I agree, the states picked definitely skew the observed % higher. As long as the states are consistent then I think the trend we are seeing can be relied on.
There's a VERY simple, but morbid, reason for that. Queers in general have MUCH higher suicide rates than any other demographic ( I think it's like double or triple compared to everyone else), but transgenders are in a whole other category even compared to other queers. I think it's something like, transgenders are 10-20X more likely to commit suicide by the age of 25-30, and the likelihood increases exponentially with every decade they grow older. VERY few trans people ever actually end up "old" because they usually end up killing themselves way before they could grow old.
Morbid, I know, but that's the main reason it's more prevalent among younger demographics than older. Most of them will kill themselves before they get the chance to get old.
That’s horrifying to think about..