Transgender: How many are we?

• Posted by Elizabeth (Liz) June 14, 2014 #  822 views
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  In my journey to womanhood I've tried to find official figures on the number of transgender people in the UK. What I've found is that there are no accurate figures. It's understandable, I've spent so many years hiding the truth and I know so many others who still do. The figures that are available are pure estimates based on the number of people who are being treated by a GIC or have changed their name and gender on their passport, or even those who have been open in questionnaires. Put two statisticians on it and you'll get huge differences in the estimates.

   

  Peronally, what I have found is that the majority of people, who now know about me, know someone else who is transgender. Of the first 6 people I told at work, 4 had known or knew someone, and those 6 people were not talking about the same person. Even friends have said "oh yeah, my friend had the op a few years ago". All of them now know one more.

   

  The surpising thing about all of this is that we seem to have gained acceptance by sneaking in under the radar. I have no doubt that the highly visible gay rights movement did us a favour, but they weren't really in it for us, we were the slightly quirky sibling, not quite fitting in to their games. But, society, as far as I have found, is far more comfortable with the diversity of life..maybe that's all it is, everyone has gotten used to the fact that the world is colourful, not the monochrome place of our parents and grandparents?

   

  Who knows. This was a bit of a random blog, but there's a huge thunderstorm going on and I can't sleep, hence the random thoughts