QUESTION: proportion of trangender, transsexual, intersex & gender-variant people impacted by prisons?

question / pregunta: 

How would I find the number or proportion of transgender, transsexual, intersex and/or gender-variant people in the United States to how many are estimated to be affected by policing and prisons?

Answers

According to an article from Contemporary Sexuality, it is very difficult to accurate count the population of transgendered people in the U.S., in general. However, the author did provide an estimate:

"The size of the transgendered population is difficult to estimate, much less define; recent published statistics put the numbers at anywhere from 2 percent to 6 percent of the general U.S. population. Harder still is gathering figures on transgender inmates from corrections authorities. The Justice Department reports there were, in 1999, 2,026,596 Americans in all jails and prisons; and there are 690 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. residents, according to The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit prison research and advocacy organization in Washington. These numbers suggest, however unreliably, that transgendered inmates number in the thousands, or even tens of thousands."

Richard D. Trans behind bars: Officials, activists struggle with options. Contemporary Sexuality [serial online]. September 2000;34(9):1. Available from: MasterFILE Premier, Ipswich, MA.

No Statistics [yet] compiled

Tarzwell, S. (2006). THE GENDER LINES ARE MARKED WITH RAZOR WIRE: ADDRESSING STATE PRISON POLICIES AND PRACTICES FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF TRANSGENDER PRISONERS. Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 38(1), 167-219, in note #8 (p170) laments the "near universal failure" to document transgender prison populations, referring for more information to: Alexander Lee "Gendered Crime and Punishment Gender Variant & Intersex People in America's Prisons." GIC Tip Journal

This article may also be useful, though it also laments the lack of statistics documenting trangender incarcerated people on p. 522

Lori Sexton and Valerie Jenness have done a demographic study of Transgender inmates in mens jails in California. Its published on the web here

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