Doc ImpossibleFeb 24

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

Show threadDoc ImpossibleFeb 24

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.

Show threadDoc ImpossibleFeb 24

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.

Show threadDoc ImpossibleFeb 24

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/

Nearly half of transgender people surveyed have moved or are considering moving to more trans-affirming places

Williams Institute
Show threadEira TanseyFeb 24
@Impossible_PhD Hopefully future studies try to gauge the distance (i.e. miles) and typical migration patterns of these moves. I'm thinking of how a lot of studies of climate change related internal movement often show that people typically move to the nearest perceived safe location, and the Great Migration itself had a lot of "typical" migration routes (e.g., I seem to recall that the Black migrants to Chicago and New York typically came from different parts of the South).
Show threadsleepfreeparent
@TeamMidwest @Impossible_PhD if you're tracking moves between states, yes that makes a lot of sense. For those moving counties it's really a lottery as to which places will take you, based on family history and age and what work skills you may have
Feb 24 at 7:52pmWeb