Introduction to the Demography of Transgender, Nonbinary, and Gender Minority Populations

This chapter provides an introduction to the demographic study of transgender, nonbinary, and gender minority populations. We overview how sex and gender have been conceptualized and measured in qualitative and quantitative social science research, including a history of the demography of gender and sexuality, a summary of historical research on gender diverse populations and the development of interdisciplinary transgender studies, and a history of the nomenclature used with reference to gender diverse populations. Considering these cultural and scholarly contexts of demographic research on these populations, we propose a new kind of demography that incorporates insights and perspectives from interdisciplinary transgender studies and community knowledge emerging from transgender, nonbinary, and gender minority populations—a project that we term trans demography. Finally, we provide an overview of the chapters contained in this volume.