yr dedication to dicks is so real

a) laughably ineffectual and corrupt bureaucracy b) fascist dictatorship controlled by space warlocks c) exploitation by evil crime gangster who is probably also a slug

abducted as a baby and raised by monks, then die a 35-year-old virgin at the hands of a goddamn robot with tuberculosis

hunted down and shot to death by grunts in stupid helmets because space wizards are illegal right now (again)

go through a goth phase, then your eyes get all yucky and one of the monks finds you and cuts your head off

Hey anon, I’m so sorry that that’s a fear you’ve had to live with. I know that trans people are at greater risk of violence and suicide, and I’ve heard people say many times that the life expectancy of trans people (or trans women, or trans women of color, depending on who you ask) is anywhere from 23 to 35. Your ask troubled me, so I’ve dug deep looking for solid evidence of any of these, and I don’t believe that these statistics are true.

A trans woman, Helen, looked into the “23 years” claim and traced it back to someone’s notes on two workshops at a 2007 conference, which stated that trans people’s life expectancy is “believed to be around 23” (emphasis mine) but cites no actual source. This claim has been presented as fact in many news articles since then, but as far as I can tell, no one seems to know where this figure came from.

Another claim is often sourced to an Argentine psychologist quoted in this NPR article: 

Psychologist Graciela Balestra, who works closely with the transgender community, says it’s an especially vulnerable population.

“Transgender people have an average life expectancy of about 30 to 32 years,” Balestra says. “They don’t live any longer; I think that statistic alone says so much.”

But again, the article gives no source for this figure. 

I found an article claiming that a 2014 report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) “concludes the average life expectancy of trans people in the Western Hemisphere is between 30-35 years.” However, when I tracked down the report, An Overview of Violence Against LGBTI Persons (pdf), its only reference to this is (emphasis mine): “[T]he IACHR has received information that the life expectancy of trans women in the Americas is between 30 and 35 years of age.” Again, this is no source.

Someone said on my post that these statistics may have come from the NCTE/NGLTF report Injustice at Every Turn (pdf), but I can’t find any reference to any such claim in the report.

Thinking about these claims, they seem unlikely for some basic reasons. Consider that we simply don’t have a long enough span of data on trans people, and that what data we do have is extremely limited because we can’t always know who is trans and who isn’t. Consider also that, although obviously the murder rates for trans people are extremely high, the number of deaths of 20-something trans people would have to be ENORMOUS to offset the existence of older trans people and bring the average down to 30. Especially since, unlike with racial groups for example, the data on trans people would likely include almost no childhood deaths, simply because it would be much more difficult (and in many cases impossible) to identify these children as trans. And since we know that trans women of color are extremely disproportionately affected by violence, statistics that include white people and/or trans men would be especially unlikely to be so low.

And as to your specific situation anon, again given that trans women of color are most at risk, I don’t think we have reason to believe that being non-binary specifically puts a person at anywhere near this level of increased risk of dying young.

I don’t say any of this to question anyone’s experiences or to deny the state of emergency that trans women face with regard to violence. That is very real. But I think it can be harmful, even dangerous to trans people to spread claims like this around, especially without evidence. Expecting to die by 30 would take an extreme emotional toll on anyone, and trans people deserve better.

But don’t take my word for it: FORGE, a national transgender anti-violence organization that works with trans survivors of sexual assault, wrote the following in its 2016 publication “First Do No Harm: 8 Tips for AddressingViolence AgainstTransgender and GenderNon-Binary People” (pdf) (I have moved two footnotes into the main text and provided links to some endnote sources; italicized emphasis is theirs while bold is mine.): 

Promote Hopefor the Future

It certainly is not the same as a murder, but publicizing a low “life expectancy” rate for transwomen of color is another way to steal away their future, a “crime” that has been committed repeatedly by trans, LGBQ, and mainstream press. Think about the people you know or have heard of who have been diagnosed with a fatal illness and given a short time to live: how many of them have enrolled in college, undertaken lengthy training for a new occupation, had a new child, or tried to establish a new non-profit? A few do, certainly, but many more focus on their bucket list, arrange for their good-byes, or simply give up entirely, essentially relinquishing whatever time they have left to depression and regrets. When we tell transwomen of color they cannot expect to live very long, we rob them of hope. We rob them of any motivation to invest in themselves, their relationships, and their communities. We rob them, in short, of their lives even while they are still living. (This statement in no way negates the need to systemically work to improve and increase the life expectancy of trans people through working to end transphobia, racism, poverty, pervasive violence, and health and healthcare inequities, and more.)

One trans woman of color was trying to come to grips with an estimated lifespan figure more than ten years shorter than the one that has been published most often. (We are not repeating any of the (incorrect) estimated lifetime figures that are circulating, to avoid even inadvertent reinforcement.) Faced with the report of yet another attack on another trans woman, she wrote:

These days, I look at the latest reports of stabbed, shot, beaten trans women, search myself for tears, and I cannot find a thing. I want to mourn and rage. I want to honor all of our sisters — the hundreds each year who are ripped, namelessly and without fanfare, from this life — who are taken so young before their time. But the grief and anger — even empathy — do not come. I don’t feel anything but numbness and fatigue, and somewhere far below that, fear.

The terrible irony of the life expectancy “fact” is that it is based on an impossibility. The only ways to determine a given population’s life expectancy are to: examine decades or more of death certificates or census data containing the information being studied, or follow a specific set of individuals for around 100 years and record every single death. There is not and never has been a census of transgender people. Our death certificates do not mark us as transgender. There has been no 100-year-long study of a representative group of trans people. So where are the estimatedlifespan figures coming from?

FORGE tracked the most commonly-cited figure back to what was most likely the 2014 Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference, where a workshop presenter gave the figure and explained she had calculated it by averaging the age of death for all of those listed on the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) website. This means the figure is actually the average age of those trans people who were both murdered and came to the attention of someone who added them to the TDOR list. Interestingly, this average is very close to the average age of everyone who is murdered in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Justice statistics. [I’m not seeing an average age given in the cited source but you can see on page 5 of this Bureau of Justice Statistics report (pdf) that the average age of homicide victims in the U.S. was between 30 and 35 from 1980 to 2008.]

But not everyone is murdered.

Despite how many there may appear to be, only a tiny, tiny fraction of transpeople are killed by otherpeople. Most of us, transwomen of color included, live average lifespans and die of the most common U.S. killers — heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, and unintentional injuries (accidents).

Please don’t add to fear and hopelessness by spreading inaccurate and profoundly disempowering data.

Since I can’t respond to everyone directly, I’m @ing some people who’ve brought this up on my post and may be interested: (urls removed after posting for their privacy). I appreciate your thoughtfulness in bringing this to my attention. If you or anyone else has a source on any of these figures that can provide specific methodology, I’d be very grateful to see that.

In closing, here are some resources that provide a more hopeful view of trans aging. They are well known but I hope they will be helpful to someone.

To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Older Adults

#RealLiveTransAdult and RealLifeTransAdult.com

Trans Elders’ Life Histories, an upcoming oral history project which will hopefully be available soon in the University of Victoria Transgender Archives

SAGE: Advocacy and Services for LGBT Elders, where you can potentially volunteer with trans and other LGBT seniors

To be clear, I’m not arguing with you, simply trying to make sense of this information. You’re not obligated to read this tbh.

The linked article says, “The life expectancy of transsexuals and transvestites in Brazil is 35 years, less than half the national average (75 years)” (“A expectativa de vida de transexuais e travestis no Brasil é de 35 anos, menos de metade da média nacional (75 anos).”) It isn’t explicit about where this number comes from but gives two possible sources.

The first is a publication from The National Association of Travestis and Transsexuals (Associação Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais (ANTRA)) called “Map of Transsexual and Transsexual murders in Brazil in 2017” (“Mapa dos assassinatos de Travestis e Transexuais no Brasil em 2017”) (backup). On page 16 it says:

Although there are no systematic studies on the life expectancy of feminine travestis and transsexuals, Antunes (2013) states that the life expectancy of this population is 35 years of age.

[Apesar de não haver estudos sistemáticos sobre a expectativa de vida das travestis e transexuais femininas, Antunes (2013) afirma que a expectativa de vida desta população seja de 35 anos de idade.]

“No systematic studies” isn’t great, but let’s check out that citation: Antunes, Pedro Paulo Sammarco. 2013. Travestis envelhecem? It’s a book called, loosely translated, Do Travestis Age? It’s not going to be easy for me to find a copy, but according to WorldCat it was “[o]riginally presented as the author’s thesis (master’s)–Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 2010.”

I tracked down that thesis. Searching through it, I can’t find any reference to an exact life expectancy (expectativa de vida) for this population. I also can’t find either the numeral 35 or the number thirty-five (trinta e cinco). It’s possible that this figure is in the published book but not the thesis. But I think it’s somewhat unlikely that this is the actual source of the number, since it’s a not a quantitative study but a qualitative one based on interviews with older travestis. (These are really interesting by the way.)

The ANTRA document also cites, on page 85, an article by Neto Lucon which quotes the author:

Every day stories about murders and deaths of travestis and transsexual women spread through the news. Whether they are within a context of prostitution, transphobic crimes, diseases, (high-risk) aesthetic treatments and suicide.

The life expectancy of the group: 35 years, informed the doctor of social psychology Pedro Sammarco, author of the book Travestis Envelhecem, compared to the average of 74.9 years of other Brazilians (IBGE, 2013). He stresses, however, that the number should change in the coming years, since it is now possible to see and account for the elderly travestis.

[Todos os dias matérias sobre assassinatos e mortes de travestis e mulheres transexuais se espalham pelos noticiários. Sejam elas dentro de um contexto de prostituição, por crimes transfóbicos, doenças, tratamentos estéticos (de alto risco) e suicídio.

A expectativa de vida do grupo: 35 anos, informou o doutor em psicologia social Pedro Sammarco, autor do livro Travestis Envelhecem, frente à média de 74,9 anos dos demais brasileiros (IBGE, 2013). Ele frisa, todavia, que o número deve mudar nos próximos anos, já que atualmente é possível ver e contabilizar as travestis idosas.]

It’s still unclear whether Sammarco Antunes arrived at this number himself and if so how. But I think it’s really interesting that he says the life expectancy “should change in the coming years, since it is now possible to see and account for the elderly travestis.” This suggests that it’s not a true life expectancy, based on comprehensive observation of the entire group, but instead perhaps something like one of the figures discussed in my original post — an average age of people who were murdered and whose stories were reported. I may try to email him and ask.

ANTRA also says, on page 49, “the collective Transrevolution presents the [life expectancy] estimate of 30 years” (“o coletivo Transrevolução apresenta a estimativa de 30 anos”). They cite this article, which again simply restates the statistic but doesn’t explain how it was calculated or point to any further information. The article seems to have lifted the line from Transrevolução’s blog, which similarly gives no source.

On to the linked article’s second source — a document called “The vicious circle of violence: Trans and gender-diverse people, migration, and sex work” from TransRespect, a project of Transgender Europe (TGEU). This one’s in English. It doesn’t mention life expectancy, but does mention the age of 35:

A report published by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in 2015 places a special emphasis on violence against trans people, particularly trans women. IACHR states that, “according to the information received and the data produced by the IACHR, trans women are killed mostly before 35 years of age and are particularly vulnerable to violence by law enforcement agents.”

The cited report is Violence against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Persons in the Americas. It says:

Some Latin American organizations report that the average life expectancy of trans women in the region is as low as 35 years of age, or even less.772 In this regard, the IACHR has noted that while it seems that gay men of all ages are targeted, in the case of trans women, it is mostly younger trans women who are victims of violence. The IACHR has expressed concern about the young age of trans victims of killings and other acts of violence. According to the data collected, 80% of trans persons killed were 35 years of age or younger.773

772. Exact figures vary according to sources and countries. See, among others: IACHR, Hearing on Trans Persons’ Right to Identity, 144th Period of Sessions, March 23, 2012; IACHR, Minutes of Meeting of Experts on Violence against LGBTI Persons in the Americas, Washington DC, February 25-25, 2012; REDLACTRANS, La Transfobia en América Latina y el Caribe, 2009, p. 63; [Argentina] Instituto Nacional contra la Discriminación, la Xenofobia y el Racismo (INADI), Políticas inclusivas para el colectivo trans, 2013; [Guatemala] Organización Trans Reinas de la Noche, REDLACTRANS, IGLHRC, Heartland Alliance and The George Washington University Law School International Human Rights Clinic, Human Rights Violations of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) People in Guatemala: A Shadow Report, March 2012, p. 16; [Uruguay] Ministerio de Desarrollo Social, Políticas públicas y diversidad sexual: Análisis de la heteronormatividad en la vida de las personas y las instituciones. Informe final, June 2013, p. 135. In a 2005 study conducted in Argentina analyzing the death of 420 trans persons (travestis), 70% of them were between 22 and 41 years of age at the time of their death. Berkins, Lohana, “Travestis: una identidad política” in Pensando los feminismos en Bolivia, Conexión Fondo de Emancipación, 2012, p. 224.

773. IACHR, Press Release No. 153A/14, Overview of Violence against LGBTI Persons in the Americas: a Registry Documenting Acts of Violence between January 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014, Annex to Press Release No. 153/14. December 17, 2014

This is a lot to chew on. I’ll start at the beginning.

Hearing on Trans Persons’ Right to Identity — I found this audio from the hearing on this page. Unfortunately, the audio quality is too low for my Spanish listening skills. I’ll try, but in the meantime if anyone else can tell me if it gives any source or methodology for a life expectancy statistic that would be amazing. Update: At about 2:15 the speaker repeats the statistic. Some followers have listened to the full audio and it does not seem to include any source or methodology.

Minutes of Meeting of Experts on Violence against LGBTI Persons in the Americas — I can’t find this.

REDLACTRANS, La Transfobia en América Latina y el Caribe [Transphobia in Latin America and the Caribbean], 2009, p. 63 — I can’t find the 2009 version of this report specifically, but I found what seems to be an updated version of the same report here, and it does talk about life expectancy on page 63. It says:

The life expectancy of trans people, according to the data gathered within REDLACTRANS, ranges between 35.5 and 41.25 years, while life expectancy in Latin America in general terms is around 75 years of age. The causes of such a difference must be sought at two levels. That of institutionalized and structural transphobia; and that of the causes associated with sex work and its dangers. The references listed different causes of death: HIV/AIDS, transphobic homicides, police abuse, poor care in hospitals and health centers, null job opportunities, industrial silicone misuse, poverty context, social and political violence.

[La esperanza de vida de las personas trans, según los datos reunidos al interior de REDLACTRANS, oscila entre los 35,5 y los 41,25 años, mientras que la esperanza de vida en Latinoamérica en términos generales ronda los 75 años de edad. Las causas de tamaña diferencia, hay que buscarlas a dos niveles. El de la transfobia institucionalizada y estructural; y el de las causas asociadas al trabajo sexual y sus peligros. Las referentes enumeraron distintas causas de muerte: VIH/SIDA, homicidios transfóbicos, abusos policiales, mala atención en hospitales y centros de salud, nulas oportunidades laborales, mal uso de silicona industrial, contexto de pobreza, violencia social y política.]

Still no explanation of how they arrived at these numbers. When is it 35.5 and when is it 41.25, for example? Which countries did the data come from, and how was it gathered? The rest of this paragraph makes me suspicious once again that these may be average ages of trans women who died young rather than actual life expectancies. I may email these people as well.

Instituto Nacional contra la Discriminación, la Xenofobia y el Racismo (INADI), Políticas inclusivas para el colectivo trans, 2013 — This is a press release from an Argentinian organization. It says:

According to the fieldwork carried out by Indec in collaboration with the INADI in 2012, in the preparatory framework of the “First Survey on Trans Population”, the data obtained reveal the enormous vulnerability lived by the group of transvestites, transsexuals, transgenders (Trans): 93.8% of the trans population is or was in a situation of prostitution; 72% are currently looking for another form of income to stop prostitution. A reality emerges that becomes imperious to transform: prostitution appears as a viable activity for the immediate survival of the trans community. This reality is combined with a devastating fact: the life expectancy of the collective is 35 years when the average of the rest of the population is 75 years.

[De acuerdo al trabajo de campo realizado por Indec en colaboración con el INADI en 2012, en el marco preparatorio de la “Primera Encuesta sobre Población Trans”, los datos obtenidos revelan la enorme vulnerabilidad en que vive el colectivo de travestis, transexuales, transgéneros (Trans): el 93,8% de la población trans está o estuvo en situación de prostitución; el 72% actualmente está buscando otra forma de ingreso para dejar de prostituirse.Surge del trabajo una realidad que se vuelve imperioso transformar: la prostitución aparece como una actividad viable para la subsistencia inmediata de la comunidad trans. Esta realidad se conjuga con un dato desolador: la esperanza de vida del colectivo es de 35 años cuando el promedio del resto de la población es de 75 años.]

At first it sounds like the life expectancy figure comes from the cited study, but I can’t find anything about it in there. It seems like they’re just repeating a claim from elsewhere.

Human Rights Violations of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) People in Guatemala: A Shadow Report, March 2012, p. 16 — This report says:

Due to a multitude of factors - including, but not limited to, the prevalence of HIV infection, entering sex work at a young age, the risk of severe physical and sexual violence on the streets - the life expectancy of a transgender woman in Guatemala is approximately 25 years.

Its source for that information is:

Informe Guatemala. Transfobia, agresiones y crímenes de odio. 2007-2011. Accessed February 1, 2012, at http://issuu.com/onusidaguatemala/docs/informetransfobiaguatemala/1 

This report says:

The assertion about the short life expectancy of trans women is sketched out for the moment by averaging the age of the victims who at the time of their assault (mostly murders) would barely be about 25 years old. This is reinforced in Table 09. Age of Victims, which illustrates that 60% of the total cases where it was possible to establish age clustered between 20 to 30 years.

[La aseveración sobre las cortas expectativas de vida de las trans se bosqueja al momento de promediar la edad de las víctimas quienes al momento de su agresión (en su mayoría asesinatos) apenas tendrían 25 años de edad aproximada. Esto se ve reforzado en la Tabla 09. Edad de las Víctimas, que ilustra el 60% del total de casos en donde se pudo establecer edad, se aglomera entre los 20 a 30 años.]

In this case, my suspicions are explicitly confirmed. This is not a life expectancy! Please note also the tiny sample size.

Políticas públicas y diversidad sexual: Análisis de la heteronormatividad en la vida de las personas y las instituciones. Informe final [Public politics and sexual diversity: Analysis of heteronormativity in the life of people and institutions. Final report], June 2013, p. 135. — It says, “the average life expectancy of trans people [was] thirty-five years (The Blog, 2013)” [“la esperanza de vida promedio de las personas trans definida en los treinta y cinco años (The Blog, 2013)”]. Their source says:

It was a paradox that opened the Trans Preconference this morning in ABF, the venue of the event: in the same country where the average life of a trans person is 35 years, where 84 percent of the trans collective never reaches education high school; In that country, Argentina, the most advanced gender identity law in the world is in force.

[Fue una paradoja la que abrió la Preconferencia Trans esta mañana en ABF, sede del evento: en el mismo país donde el promedio de vida de una persona trans es de 35 años, donde el 84 por ciento del colectivo trans no llega nunca a la educación secundaria; en ese país, Argentina, rige la ley de identidad de género más avanzada del mundo.]

No source given. This is also funny because the IACHR cited it as source for Uruguay, but it’s about Argentina.

Continuing through the IACHR’s footnote:

In a 2005 study conducted in Argentina analyzing the death of 420 trans persons (travestis), 70% of them were between 22 and 41 years of age at the time of their death. Berkins, Lohana, “Travestis: una identidad política” in Pensando los feminismos en Bolivia, Conexión Fondo de Emancipación, 2012, p. 224.

Lord only knows why they chose to cite this study about Argentina via a publication about Bolivia that merely mentions another paper, not available online, that is said to mention the study. Well, it’s probably because they haven’t seen the damn thing either. I couldn’t find it, only vague references to it, some of which suggested that it actually took place in Bolivia or Brazil. But it doesn’t matter because obviously, this is not a life expectancy.

Almost done:

Overview of Violence against LGBTI Persons in the Americas: a Registry Documenting Acts of Violence between January 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014 — Whaddaya know, this is one of the sources discussed in my original post! It’s the one that says they’ve “received information” about trans life expectancy, but they sure don’t seem to want to share it. That report further says, “According to the data collected, approximately 80% of trans persons killed were 35 years of age or younger.” Another statistic that’s not actually a life expectancy.

I did some more Portuguese googling looking for any other citation for these claims about Brazil, just in case, but they all either cited no source, or cited that last report.

Conclusion

I think @tink-crash is probably right that many of these statistics are being inappropriately removed from their original Brazilian and Latin American contexts!

But I don’t believe that they’re accurate even in those contexts, for the same reasons outlined in the original post. They have no solid source, and they just don’t make mathematical sense. And in many cases, they seem to be calculated by averaging the ages of murder victims. But not all trans women are murdered. Not in the U.S., not in Brazil, not anywhere. Passing those numbers off as life expectancies is inaccurate and incredibly harmful to the mental health of trans people, especially trans women.