Transgender people in the U.S. have higher voter turnout than the general population, even though they face unique obstacles in the electoral process.
A new report from the Advocates for Trans Equality Education Fund draws from data from the 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, the largest survey of trans people in America, with over 90,000 respondents from all 50 states and several U.S. territories. The report, released Tuesday, specifically focuses on the parts of the survey that concerned civic engagement. It found that 75% of respondents who were eligible to vote reported casting a ballot in the 2020 presidential election, whereas only 67% of the general population reported the same, according to census data. Additionally, 82% of respondents reported being registered to vote, as compared to 73% of the general population.
These statistics are all the more impressive when considering the fact that trans respondents also reported facing difficulties in the voting registration process. For example, trans people were more than three times as likely as the general U.S. population to report that they didn’t know where or how to register to vote.
Of those respondents not registered to vote in the 2020 presidential election, almost a quarter (24%) said they were not interested in the election or politics. Others believed that their vote didn’t matter (19%) or that they missed registration deadlines (11%). But 6% of respondents who were not registered to vote in 2020 cited reasons related to their trans status or identity. Of that 6%, 3% of respondents said that their current name didn’t match their ID, 2% wanted to avoid being harassed by election officials, and 1% thought their state’s voter identification laws could stop them from voting.
For a number of reasons, trans people often face obstacles when it comes to obtaining or changing their IDs, whether or not they live in states where those changes are allowed. The legislative tracking organization Movement Advancement Project (MAP) found that 13% of trans adults live in states that require the publication of an announcement in order to change one’s name, with over half (66%) of trans adults living in states that have additional restrictions and/or requirements for people with criminal records. In Illinois, for example, formerly incarcerated individuals with felony convictions from the past 10 years are prohibited from changing their names; as reported by the nonprofit newsroom Injustice Watch, this restriction disproportionately impacts Black trans women.
Updating the gender marker on one’s ID can prove even more difficult. According to MAP, 19% of trans adults live in states that require proof of surgery, a court order or an amended birth certificate to change their gender marker, and 10% of trans adults live in states that don’t allow people to change the gender marker on their ID at all. Those three states that have a total ban on changing the gender marker on one’s ID — Florida, Kansas and Tennessee — all passed those restrictions within the past few years, as part of what advocates say is a growing movement to stop legally recognizing trans people.
Yet despite these barriers to gaining access to accurate forms of ID, 35 states required voters to present some form of identification in order to vote as of April 2024, per Ballotpedia, with 24 of those states requiring a photo ID.
Even as trans people faced challenges that cis voters did not, the survey found that they were still highly civically engaged. The top policy priority for almost half (46%) of respondents was violence against trans people, followed closely by racial justice (38%) and coverage for trans care (35%). Respondents were particularly concerned about healthcare; in addition to coverage, other top priorities for trans voters included youth access to gender-affirming care, a lack of trans-competent health providers, and facing discrimination from health providers. Given the fact that restricting access to gender-affirming care has become a favored talking point of right-wing politicians over the past several years, it makes sense that these are among some of trans voters’ top priorities.
In a press release sent to Them, Dr. Ankit Rastogi, the Director of Research at Advocates for Trans Equality, said that the report “really underscore[s] that trans vote count.”
“Yet, we have to jump through hurdles to vote,” they added. “Trans people deserve to participate fully in our democracy, and that means removing barriers to give us equal access to the ballot and make sure we are treated with respect at the polls.”
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