WASHINGTON, D.C., July 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A new study indicates that the percentage of adults who identify as transgender is significantly higher in Washington D.C. than the rest of the country, and the number identifying as transgender across the United States is twice the figure previously thought.
According to the Williams Institute, a pro-LGBT UCLA think tank, nearly three percent of the population in the District of Columbia, roughly 14,550 people, identify as transgender, the highest in the nation.
The study, using data from the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) annual Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey, also found that roughly 0.6 percent of American adults, or 1.4 million individuals, identify as transgender, which is twice the number from a previous Williams Institute report in 2011.
Study authors speculate the difference in the national figure is attributable to a perceived increase in visibility and social acceptance of transgender individuals causing an increase in the number of people willing to identify as transgender on a government-administered survey, and the latter data having a much wider sampling area.
The percentage of adults who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) was also highest in the District of Columbia at 10 percent, another Williams Institute study released in 2013 said.
Their visibility is typically higher in areas with higher levels of social acceptance and LGBT-supportive legal climates, according to that study, with civil action in the nation’s capitol in recent months and years supporting this.
As of 2013, the District of Columbia allows amendment of an individual’s gender designation on their birth certificate without proof of sex “reassignment” surgery.
Earlier this year, The Daily Caller reports, the D.C. city government with its “#safebathroomsDC” campaign asked residents to report private businesses that have single occupancy restrooms that aren’t “gender neutral.”
And in May, a female security guard was arrested in the nation's capital for alleged assault, facing potential hate crime charges for removing a biological male from a women's restroom.
As the Obama Administration has imposed transgender policy in government schools and offices, along with Hollywood and the news media having assisted LGBT activists in promoting homosexual behavior, attitudes toward homosexual behavior have relaxed and more Americans appear to be accepting of it.
At the same time, pro-life and family advocates caution to take many gender fluidity studies with a proverbial grain of salt, because statistics and studies can be portrayed to effectively sway the public, as evidenced by a 2015 report produced by a gay activist group showing homosexuals were immensely overrepresented in Hollywood films, and further by a 2014 CDC study finding that there are far fewer who people who identify as homosexual and bisexual in America than many think.
Dr. Joseph Berger, a Toronto psychiatrist and noted mental health expert, issued a statement during a 2013 controversy over a proposed Canadian bathroom bill that said from a medical and scientific perspective there is no such thing as a “transgendered” person, and terms such as “gender expression” and “gender identity” are at the very least ambiguous, and more an emotional appeal than a statement of scientific fact.
Experts have said that individuals suffering from gender dysphoria need psychological treatment and care, and that in fact surgical attempts to alter gender are fruitless and detrimental to those with the condition.
An estimated 41 percent of transgender individuals attempt suicide, and a 2014 study found 62.7 percent of individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria had at least one co-occurring disorder, and also that 33 percent had major depressive disorders, which are linked to suicide ideation.
Experts also warn that encouraging gender confusion, as is done in the current legislative and social climate, could serve to augment the difficulties experienced by those suffering with gender dysphoria.