The Truth About Trans Lives In America

Trans lives are not a debate — they’re human lives. In this episode, we cut through the political noise and talk honestly about what it means to be trans in America right now: the fear, the resilience, the legislation, the misinformation, and the relentless humanity behind it all. From bathroom bills to book bans to targeted violence, we expose how manufactured outrage is used to control and dehumanize — and how allyship, visibility, and truth-telling push back. This isn’t about “sides.” It’s about survival, dignity, and justice.

About your host:
Sonia in Cyber is a multicultural feminist voice, creative entrepreneur, and unapologetic truth-teller. With roots in education, tech, and product marketing, she blends data with empathy, humor with heartbreak, to expose the cracks in America’s “normal.” Through her podcast Somebody Pinch Me, she gives voice to the disillusioned, the outspoken, the overlooked, and the quietly furious — proving that truth doesn’t just survive in chaos; it thrives in it. Her mission is simple: to use her voice to inspire others to keep fighting, resisting, and moving forward — no matter what.

Transcript

@soniaincyber: 0:21

You ever feel like the loudest people talking about trans folks don't actually know any? You ever wonder why a group that makes up less than two to three percent of the US population gets treated like a national threat? Yeah, me too. This is Somebody Pinch Me with Sonia in Cyber. And today, "Myths, Muscles, and Misinformation: The Truth About Trans Lives in America".

@soniaincyber: 0:44

This is one of those times where the myths are too loud and the truth needs a bullhorn, and I will be that bullhorn today. No matter where you stand on this issue, I encourage you, listen to this whole episode. I promise you'll walk away with at least one or two things to think about. Let's start with the numbers. In the US, about 0.5 to 1% of adults identify as transgender. Among youth age 13 to 17, around 1.4%. Now, granted, there are those folks that do not publicly self-identify, especially those that are under 18, and these numbers are from recent years, so we could inflate or pad the numbers just a tad more, but even with the extras accounted for, we're looking at just over 2 million people in a country of over 340 million people. And yet they've been turned into political punching bags. Bathroom bills, sports bans, military bans, book bans, medical bans, the scale of the panic doesn't match the reality. The numbers, the real ones, not the fear-fueled kind, don't support or justify the trans hate and fear-mongering that's common in Trump America. To put it in perspective, trans people make up a tiny portion of the U.S. population. And I mean teeny, tiny. We're talking around less than one half of a percent in most of the country of over 340 million people. Literally, needles in a haystack, tiny and beautiful speckles. And when you break that down across all 50 states, that panic starts to look even more absurd. Let's run the math.

@soniaincyber: 2:25

The average state population right now is about 6.2 million, one state. And even if populations or trans people were perfectly spread out, which they're not, that would be about 56,000 trans individuals per state. But again, they're not evenly distributed. In fact, most trans people live in just a handful of states like California, Georgia, New Mexico, Florida, Texas, and Hawaii – states with larger, more diverse populations, and not coincidentally more access to affirming care and community. Meanwhile, many of the states making the most political noise – the bans, the bathroom bills, the sports restrictions, have some of the lowest trans populations in the country. We're talking 0.3% or less of their entire state's population. For example, the total transgender population in states like North Dakota, Wyoming, Iowa, is even more tiny. Here's the numbers: North Dakota, less than 3,000, Iowa, less than 10,000, Montana, less than 4,000, South Dakota, less than 3,000, and Wyoming, less than 2,000. When you compare that to states like California with over 200,000, Florida with around 100,000, and even Hawaii with over 50,000, you start to wonder what these other states are talking about. A crisis? Really? Yes, a manufactured crisis, not a real one. And let's get even more specific. If you break down the total population of trans people in America ages 13 and up more, the ratio of adults to youth is about 10 to 1. If you spread those few teens out evenly across all states, which again, they're not, that'd be around 5,000 to 6,000 trans youth per state if every state had the same population and ratios of trans to non-trans people. They don't.

@soniaincyber: 4:25

And of those trans adults or youth, only 36 to 39% are trans women. That means if trans women and girls, all 430,000 or so nationwide, were spread out evenly across all of these states, they'd each have about 22,000 trans women and girls. But again, our population isn't evenly distributed like that. And the most debated or talked about, trans girls under 18, especially those in competitive sports – that number dips to less than 2,400 per state, if they were evenly spread and even then, only a tiny fraction of that 2,400 would be competitive athletes. And by fraction, I literally mean a number you could count on one hand in most states, if at all. So when lawmakers and pundits scream about girls sports being under attack, what they're really doing is weaponizing fear against a literal handful of children, many of whom aren't even asking to compete. Conservatives love to claim trans girls are destroying women's athletics, that biological males are dominating every team, every trophy, that trans women and girls are taking away opportunities from biologically born women and girls. Reality check? The NCAA estimates fewer than 100 trans athletes nationwide. And when asked directly, NCAA president Charlie Baker recently said there are over 500,000 college athletes in the country, and he is aware of fewer than 10 trans athletes. And he said athletes, not just trans girls or women. Let that sink in. Less than 10 out of over half a million, which likely means fewer than five trans women in the entire NCAA, if we use the same 36 to 39% ratio from earlier. And in high school, the numbers are even lower.

@soniaincyber: 6:19

So when you see headlines about trans athletes taking over or destroying women's sports, lies. North Carolina banned trans athletes from school sports. At the time, only two trans girls were found to be participating – two. This isn't a trend, it's a target. And it's not about protecting girls, it's about using them for political gain and power. And what's the immediate most troubling impact? Trans girls get banned, but cis girls get policed. By cis girls, we're referring to any girls or women biologically born as such. In multiple states, cis girls have been harassed, investigated, or even forced to prove their gender for being too fast, too tall, too strong, too athletic. We've seen girls accused of being trans simply for excelling, or for having broad shoulders or not wearing enough makeup – so much for protecting girls.

@soniaincyber: 7:12

Next myth – bathrooms. This fear campaign claims trans people are a danger in public restrooms, but the actual danger is happening to trans people, not by them. Over 70% of trans people report being harassed in public restrooms, while 1 in 10 report some form of physical harm. And often this occurs when they're forced to use restrooms that they no longer seem to fit into due to their physical appearance. And here's the kicker: there is zero statistical evidence – none. Zip, zilch, zero – that trans-inclusive bathroom policies increase risk to others, especially biologically born women and girls. In fact, organizations that work to stop violence against women overwhelmingly support inclusive restroom access because they know predators don't wait for permission. This fear of men posing a threat to women or girls in bathrooms is focusing on the wrong population because those kinds of men are predators and they don't need dresses or gender-affirming care to cause harm. They lurk in the shadows, pretend to be maintenance men or cleaning crew, or just force themselves on someone. And that will happen whether trans people have inclusive bathroom rights or not.

@soniaincyber: 8:38

Fear of men and dresses is also a recycled panic. These kinds of attacks on bathroom privileges and rights aren't new. Bathrooms were used to block the Equal Rights Amendment and promote segregation. Bathroom rights were used to criminalize gay men, and bathroom rights are now used to target trans people and on an even larger scale the entire LGBTQIA+ community. And here's what no one wants to admit. Trans people have always existed. You've already shared a restroom with them, likely many times, and you, your family, your children were and are fine.

@soniaincyber: 9:13

Let's be clear: it's not about safety or fairness. It's not about saving girls. It's not about protecting our girls at all. If it were about saving our girls, we'd be fighting child marriage. We'd make sure every girl has access to proper health care. We'd protect them from abuse or harassment rather than mocking them when speaking out. If it were about protecting girls, especially when it comes to competing, we'd be expanding DEI programs, not crushing them, as DEI programs help level the playing field, not just in sports, but in scholarships, STEM fields, leadership pipelines, and male-dominated industries where girls are still told to smile more and wait their turn. And that's girls or women of any color. We'd be fighting for pay equity, for Title IX protections, for safe coaches and locker rooms. We'd be investing in after-school programs and not trying to weaken Head Start. This is all about distraction, about control, about turning people into talking points and kids into scapegoats. And for those of you who dare to say trans girls hinder your daughters from opportunities or a fair chance, trans girls aren't the ones blocking your daughter. But corporations who still pay women 77 cents on the dollar? They are. Corporations that still have boardrooms with an all-male leadership team or that consider adding one female a stretch or them doing their part? They are. The policies gutting education, crushing reproductive rights and access to quality healthcare, banning inclusive curriculum and books, and failing to implement more responsible gun ownership regulations that would prevent or significantly lessen the unthinkable events we've seen time and time again in schools or libraries or grocery stores or homes? They are. If we, America, really cared about girls' safety and success, we'd be going after the corporations selling them starvation in a bottle and calling it wellness. We'd be regulating toxic beauty products that disrupt hormones, cause infertility or worse, cancer, that bleach their skin or push them into puberty panic before they even know their own names. We'd be holding the media accountable for glorifying thinness, perfection, and sexualization, not punishing girls for being confident, athletic, or too much. We'd be asking why a billion-dollar industry gets to profit off their insecurities while pretending it's about empowerment.

@soniaincyber: 11:39

We'd be regulating social media platforms that profit from their pain. We'd be forcing companies to take down harmful content, not just slap warnings on it. We'd hold tech billionaires accountable for building algorithms that encourage eating disorders, self-harm, and the use of hypersexualized filters in their feeds before they even hit puberty. We'd be asking why 11-year-old girls know how to FaceTime or use Cap Cut, but not how to advocate for themselves or get attention without using their body. And probably the most critical one of all, if we really cared about protecting girls, we'd invest heavily in our boys and men, in real emotional education, in mental health care, in rehabilitation and re-entry programs for men who never learn to cope with control or emotions, how to feel without violence, or how to lead without dominance. We'd fund anger management, therapy, and other programs to help boys drowning in shame, ego, rage, loneliness, or silence.

@soniaincyber: 12:39

Trans kids aren't the threat to girlhood. But unchecked capitalism, sure is. An abundance of toxic masculinity, sure is. A political machine that believes guns should have more rights than girls, sure is. A system that turns girlhood into a market while looking the other way when it breaks them, sure is. The glass ceiling isn't held up by trans kids. It's held up by people pretending they care about your daughter's well-being while rigging the whole damn system even further. And the distractions they present are working, because most people don't hear these numbers or truths. They don't even bother looking for them. They just hear the noise, the false claims given to them, and believe it. But now you know better.

@soniaincyber: 13:22

Let's switch gears and talk about trans military service. In 2016, the Pentagon lifted its ban on trans troops after a year-long study focused on the possible implications of doing so. The study provided no reason for the ban to continue and thousands were allowed to serve openly. But in 2017, Trump reversed that, by tweet. And though Biden reinstated it when he came into office, Trump issued another executive order when coming into office in 2025 banning trans people from serving again. No study, no data, no justification, just bigotry.

@soniaincyber: 13:57

There are around 2 million service members currently, and of those 2 million, 15,000 are transgender service members. Many have served honorably for a decade plus. Some were close to retirement, and when they were banned, many lost everything or will lose everything. No discipline record, no failing scores, just gone. Ask yourself, is that the way any honorable United States military service member should be treated? And if your daughter came out as trans at 13, would you want her banned from the military for this if she decided to join after high school, or better yet, not allowed to serve at all, despite your entire family having a military history and you consider joining the military a family tradition or rite of passage? Or how about if she was barred from sports or afraid to pee at school or in public places?

@soniaincyber: 14:49

Trans youth aren't a threat. They're at risk. They're in danger. More than half of trans and non-binary youth have considered suicide, not because of their identity, but because of the world's reaction to it. And you know what saves lives? Gender-affirming care. Care backed by every major U.S. medical association representing over a million doctors, care rooted in decades of research, care that when denied has deadly consequences. Let's bust one last myth. The idea that being trans is new. Try again.

@soniaincyber: 15:25

Trans identities have been documented since back in 5000 to 3000 BC. South Asia recognizes multiple genders even now, eight, the last time I checked. So did pre-colonial Africa, indigenous North America, and Polynesian cultures. The only thing that's changed? Who's allowed to be visible and recognized – in America.

@soniaincyber: 15:48

Now, is building a more inclusive society comfortable for everyone? A smooth transition? No hiccups, no tension, no discomfort or moments of unfamiliar? Absolutely not. Growth never is. It takes unlearning. It takes exposure. It takes choosing empathy over ego again and again. It takes listening when it's easier to argue, and questioning the stories we were handed, especially those wrapped in fear or faith or nostalgia. It means remembering what it felt like to be the new kid, the outsider, the one nobody made space for. It means choosing curiosity over cruelty and compassion over control.

@soniaincyber: 16:31

If you've been told trans people are the threat, you've been lied to. They are students, soldiers, siblings, teammates, friends. They deserve the truth. They deserve care. And they deserve to live without being legislated out of existence. The world is shifting. And we can either cling to old myths or meet the moment with courage. Not because it's easy, but because it's necessary and right. And if that feels hard, it should. That means you're growing.

@soniaincyber: 17:08

This was "Myths, Muscles, and Misinformation: The Truth About Trans Lives in America".

@soniaincyber: 17:12

Feel like one episode wasn't enough? Good. We're just getting started.