34,000 Virginia’s Residents are Transgender

Five years ago, the University of California-Los Angeles law school’s Williams Institute, which conducts research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, announced that there were approximately 700,000 Americans identifying as transgender.

But that estimate may have been far too small. Today, according to the Institute’s newest survey, there are about 1.4 million transgender people in America, or roughly 0.6% of the adult population. The new survey drew from a larger Centers for Disease Control (CDC) database to get the estimate, double the Institute’s previous estimate, and a much higher number than researchers in earlier years had found.

Virginia ranks 25th in the nation with .55% or 34,500 transgender residents. North Carolina, which has put itself at the center of the national debate over transgender rights with the passage of HB2, has the 17th-largest overall transgender population in the country with 44,750 transgender residents.

Here’s the map:

Here are the numbers of transgender people estimated by the Institute to live in each state, ranked by highest to lowest percentage of population that identifies as transgender (with each state’s approximate total transgender population in parentheses).

1. District of Columbia: 2.77% of the population is transgender (approximately 14,550 transgender people)
2. Hawaii: 0.78% (8,450)
3. California: 0.76% (218,400)
4. New Mexico: 0.75% (11,750)
5. Georgia: 0.75% (55,650)
6. Texas: 0.66% (125,350)
7. Florida: 0.66% (100,300)
8. Oregon: 0.65% (19,750)
9. Oklahoma: 0.64% (18,350)
10. Delaware: 0.64% (4,550)
11. Tennessee: 0.63% (31,200)
12. Washington: 0.62% (32,850)
13. Arizona: 0.62% (30,550)
14. Nevada: 0.61% (12,700)
15. Mississippi: 0.61% (13,650)
16. Alabama: 0.61% (22,500)
17. North Carolina: 0.60% (44,750)
18. Louisiana: 0.60% (20,900)
19. Arkansas: 0.60% (13,400)
20. Vermont: 0.59% (3,000)
21. Minnesota: 0.59% (24,250)
22. South Carolina: 0.58% (21,000)
23. Massachusetts: 0.57% (29,900)
24. Indiana: 0.56% (27,600)
25. Virginia: 0.55% (34,500)
26. Missouri: 0.54% (25,050)
27. Kentucky: 0.53% (17,700)
28. Colorado: 0.53% (20,850)
29. Rhode Island: 0.51% (4,250)
30. New York: 0.51% (78,600)
31. Illinois: 0.51% (49,750)
32. Maine: 0.50% (5,350)
33. Maryland: 0.49% (22,300)
34. Alaska: 0.49% (2,700)
35. Ohio: 0.45% (39,950)
36. Pennsylvania: 0.44% (43,800)
37. New Jersey: 0.44% (30,100)
38. Connecticut: 0.44% (12,400)
39. Wisconsin: 0.43% (19,150)
40. New Hampshire: 0.43% (4,500)
41. Michigan: 0.43% (32,900)
42. Kansas: 0.43% (9,300)
43. West Virginia: 0.42% (6,100)
44. Idaho: 0.41% (4,750)
45. Nebraska: 0.39% (5,400)
46. Utah: 0.36% (7,200)
47. South Dakota: 0.34% (2,150)
48. Montana: 0.34% (2,700)
49. Wyoming: 0.32% (1,400)
50. Iowa: 0.31% (7,400)
51. North Dakota: 0.30% (1,650)