The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) was the largest survey ever devoted to the lives and experiences of transgender people, with 27,715 respondents across the United States.
The 2022 US Trans Survey will be even larger. The survey was open from Oct. 19, 2022 - December 5, 2022.
The USTS provides much-needed information to help the public understand the lives and experiences of transgender people in the United States and the disparities that many transgender people face. The USTS fills in some of the large gaps in research about transgender people, and it provides critical tools for researchers, policymakers, and advocates seeking to better understand the needs of transgender people and to find ways to improve their lives. The USTS also provides a benchmark that will help us learn how those experiences are changing over time; so much of the results of the 2022 survey will be comparable to 2015.
The 2015 USTS was also a follow up to the 2008-09 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), which though ground-breaking at the time as the largest survey of trans people, had a much smaller sample of 6,452. In addition, the 2015 USTS team decided to overhaul the questionnaire to more closely match federal surveys, and added many new questions and topics given the ability to enlist skip logic. Thus, the comparability between the NTDS which was fielded in 2008-9 and the 2015 USTS is limited.
In 2016, NCTE released the report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. With almost 28,000 respondents, the USTS is the largest survey ever devoted to the lives and experiences of trans people.
In 2011, NCTE and the National LGBTQ Task Force released the report of the NTDS. Interviews with over 6,400 transgender and gender non-conforming people made it the largest such study at the time it was conducted. The study has been a game changer—both for our policy work and for cultural change. For the first time, we were able to quantify the discrimination and violence transgender people face. The findings from the NTDS are available in multiple reports that cover specific subpopulations and issues.
Transgender people face discrimination and violence throughout society, from their family growing up, in school, at work, by homeless shelters, by doctors, in emergency rooms, before judges, by landlords, and by police officers.
