'We're not alone': Survey shows more transgender Texans OK with coming out

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'We're not alone': Survey shows more transgender Texans OK with coming out

 

By Lauren McGaughy Follow @lmcgaughy lmcgaughy@dallasnews.com

Austin bureau

Published: 30 June 2016 01:26 PM

Updated: 30 June 2016 05:49 PM

AUSTIN -- More Texans and Americans are openly identifying as transgender, a new analysis shows, a trend that LGBT activists call heartening and politically meaningful.

 

According to an analysis of federal data by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, the number of Americans who identify as transgender has doubled in the last five years. In Texas, just more than 125,000 people -- or 0.66 percent of the population -- now identify as a gender different than at their birth. That's just slightly higher than the national average.

Lou Weaver, transgender programs coordinator for the

 

LGBT rights group Equality Texas, said the numbers will help people feel less like they are "a mistake," knowing that they are not alone