Disabled and Deaf Trans People’s Survey Fact Sheet
Barriers to Gender Expression
The Disabled and Deaf Trans People’s Survey (DTPS) is a groundbreaking effort by the Disability Project of Transgender Law Center to design and deliver a small scale disability and trans led survey about the lives of disabled and Deaf trans folks in the US. The DTPS sought to document and amplify the experiences, needs, and priorities of disabled and Deaf trans people. Too often, due to ableism, eugenics, and anti-Black racism, our cultural and collective knowledge and perspectives have been overlooked in research, making it harder specifically for Black, brown, Indigenous, queer, trans, undocumented, and poor disabled and Deaf communities to advocate for the changes we deserve.
In releasing this series of fact sheets, the team is deeply committed to honoring the trust that so many of our folks placed in us by taking the survey, and by returning the results back into our community. It is our hope that the DTPS provides a useful tool for the vital work ahead of shifting narratives, organizing across historic divides, and building collective power.
The findings below demonstrate how trans disabled and Deaf people are denied agency around our gender identity and prevented from accessing gender related care. As disabled and Deaf people, we are often infantilized and afforded little to no bodily autonomy, based on the assumption that disabled and Deaf people cannot possibly know or understand what is best for us and our lives. The results below show how this impacts disabled and Deaf trans people and our access to resources, care and community that is supportive, affirming and critical to leading full, dignified lives.
Structural Barriers to Gender Identity Exploration
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More than 1 in 2 participants said that they did not have the resources and opportunities they needed to explore their gender identity.
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1 in 3 participants reported that people thought they could not understand their gender identity because they are disabled or Deaf.
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1 in 5 said that someone stopped them from expressing their gender identity specifically because of them being disabled or Deaf.
Institutional Barriers to Gender-Affirming Care
Participants were asked about their experiences with agencies or organizations, like courts, schools, work places, healthcare systems or government offices, denying or preventing them from accessing gender affirming care.
Percentage of participants who reported being denied or prevented from accessing gender-affirming care by agencies or organizations
Interpersonal Barriers to Gender Affirmation
We also asked participants about their experiences with people in their personal life, like family members, partners, guardians, or personal assistants, stopping them from accessing gender affirming care.
Percentage of participants who reported being denied or prevented from accessing gender-affirming care from someone in their personal life
Conclusion
The above results make clear how ableism, alongside misogyny and anti-Black racism, creates conditions for disabled people to be denied bodily autonomy and our freedom of expression by those closest to us and the institutions we interact with. It is particularly illuminating that the vast majority of participants reported that people thought that they could not understand their gender identity or were stopped from expressing their gender identity because they are disabled or Deaf. This further supports the Disability Project’s conclusion that so many of our trans and queer disabled kin are unknown due to the extreme isolation that disabled trans people experience and the lack of access to trans language, community and culture that would allow them to identify their own transness for themselves.
As disabled people, we often are not afforded credibility when it comes to having an understanding and deep knowing about our own gender and sexuality. For the reported 1.3 million disabled people living under guardianship, this lack of credibility is even more severe—guardianship (sometimes called conservatorship) grants a guardian control over nearly every aspect of a disabled person’s life, including their attire, finances, social life, and access to gender-affirming care. As our findings demonstrate, there are many ways that disabled people don’t have autonomy to make decisions related to their gender identity, and guardianship can represent an extreme manifestation of this broader pattern of denying disabled and Deaf trans people the freedom to know and express ourselves.
As disabled and Deaf trans people, we deserve access to gender affirming care, language, clothing, culture and community, just like our able-bodied trans peers. In our current socio-political climate, the rights and dignity of trans people are under attack, with the attempted decimation of nondiscrimination protections and restrictions on access to gender-affirming healthcare. What this data shows is that we, as disabled trans people, must not be left behind in the fight for trans justice. Indeed, centering disabled and Deaf trans people’s specific challenges in this fight will lead to broader access to gender affirming care, dignity, bodily autonomy, and respect for all of us.
About the Disabled and Deaf Trans People’s Survey
Open to all trans and nonbinary disabled and Deaf adults in the U.S., the survey was accessible in ASL, Spanish, and English in both spoken and written forms. To keep the survey short and accessible, the DTPS was broken into five different topics and participants were able to choose which sections they wanted to engage with. The information represented in this factsheet is from the “Expressing Your Gender as. a Deaf or Disabled Person” portion of the survey (n=1,142). This survey was possible due to the innumerable trans, disabled, Deaf, and ill community members who generously gave advice, direction, and reflection.
We worked in close collaboration with disabled community based strategic advisors Ma’ayan Anafi, and Akemi Nishida and the research team of Ash Stephens and Emily Maurin-Waters.