I think this is one of those things that's stunning, in all the worst ways, and most of them aren't obvious.
Let's start with the basics: there are about 5.5 million trans Americans. This means that *nearly 10% of the entire trans population of the nation* has moved.
Just
Last
Year
Really sit with that for a moment.
The only comparable historical mass-movement like it is The Great Migration, in which about 40% of the Black population of America moved north, to safer states.
Over a period of *sixty years*.
And the trans population isn't as concentrated as the Black population was.
According to the 2022 USTS, about 60ish percent of trans Americans lived somewhere in the American south. That means that about 3.3 million trans Americans lived in those high-danger states, of which 400,000 moved.
That's over 12% of the trans population of the region.
And, like any mass-migration, the folks moving first are those most able to. People with money, family, connections--this migration is ***noooooot*** over.
If this keeps up, percentage-wise, it may be the most rapid non-forced (ie Trail of Tears) mass-migration in American history.
I could absolutely be wrong here, to be clear. If I am, I'd appreciate any sociologists or historians popping in to correct me.
But over 12% of a demographic fleeing a region in a year is beyond flabbergasting to me.
It's more than that, though.
According to research from *a year ago*, almost half of all trans people are considering moving for their safety. Remember that 60ish% of all trans people live in the south.
So, let's do a little napkin math here.
If 50 percentage points of a population that constitutes 60 percentage points wants to move, that means that 83% of the people in those states want to move, give or take.
Now, that number isn't quite good. On one hand, we'll have folks in, say, Wisconsin who want to skip town to Minnesota in there. On the other, Colorado is in the regions I'm talking about, and not many trans folks are leaving there, and for pretty good reason.
So, the real percentage needs to be lower, to account for dangerous states outside of the south, but what that is? Impossible to know.
But the point here is deeply disturbing: if even half of that percentage actually act, it would, percentage-point-wise, be a migration equal to that if The Great Migration.
And there's absolutely no way to slice this that's not horrifying.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/trans-moving-press-release/
@Impossible_PhD A friend of mine in Texas compared the migration from there to the AIDS epidemic in terms of its scope; so many people leaving, and no one knew who would be gone next.
Said friend let her lease end, and is staying with a friend while she seeks employment in friendlier locations.
@NicolaElle @Impossible_PhD anecdotally these numbers fit my experience as someone who lives in a state people are moving to. I live in a very small town that is a very red area in a very blue state but our local LGBTQ group is seeing a small uptick of people moving from southern states.
I also work at a very small college and in the past year we went from zero trans fems to three that I know of. I know 2 of them are transfer students fleeing southern states. Don’t know about the third. Trans masc population has been holding steady. We have always had a few and still have a few.
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