Let's talk about gender: Making transgender and gender variant populations visible in population health surveys

In recent years, general population surveys in the U.S. have increasingly included questions about sexual orientation and sexual partners, which has led to a wealth of information about LGB and other sexual minority populations. However, most population surveys have yet to include questions about gender identity. This lack of population-based data about transgender and gender variant populations often means that the “T” is left out of public health's deepening understanding of “LGBT” population health. Inclusion of gender information in population health surveys can provide crucial non-service-based information about the health and wellbeing of diverse transgender and gender variant populations. There are a number of methodological and conceptual challenges to including transgender and gender variant populations in telephone surveys, among them issues of sample size, lack of tested questions, barriers to reaching marginalized populations, and a history of survey research assuming rather than requesting the respondent's gender. In spite of these challenges, it is essential to promote new research on collecting gender information within population health surveys. In 2006 and 2008, PHMC's Southeastern Pennsylvania Household Health Survey, an RDD survey of over 10,000 households in the Philadelphia region, included for the first time a set of pilot questions asking respondents to identify both their sex at birth (male, female, or something else) and their present gender (man, woman, transgender, or something else). This presentation will examine the responses to these items and will then highlight key questions, challenges, and promises of including gender minority populations in population health survey research.