How big a problem is the hot button issue of providing transgenders with access to bathrooms where they can feel comfortable? Judging from the amount of press it is receiving, the problem is epic. The supposed intrusion by the state of North Carolina on transgender rights was enough to persuade Bruce Springsteen to cancel a concert he had scheduled there. In Los Angeles, a fight broke out yesterday outside a high school that recently installed gender-neutral bathrooms.
So how many Americans are personally incommoded (pun intended) by the toilet war in which the nation currently finds itself embroiled. Put somewhat more directly, how many transgenders live in the United States?
Web “visualizer” Graphiq has put together an interactive map of the nation that uses U.S. Census data to show estimates of the number of transgenders per 100,000 residing in each state. It is important to note that self-identification with a gender that does not comport with your biological sex is by no means a scientific fact.
Nevertheless, the map reveals that the states with the largest concentration of people who think they were born into the wrong body are Washington, Oregon, and Vermont. Each of those states boasts a whopping 10.6 transgenders per 100,000.
North Carolina, the state most in the news over its controversial bathroom law, has 4.7 transgenders per 100,000. Greensboro, the city where Springsteen was scheduled to play, has a population of approximately 281,000, which can be extrapolated to 13.2 transgenders.
In his essay “On Liberty,” which had a profound influence on U.S. constitutional law, nineteenth century philosopher John Stuart Mill wrote, “The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it.” Any questions from the left?
