How many transgender and intersex people live in the U.S.?

New laws targeting LGBTQ people are proliferating in GOP-led states, but often absent from policy decisions is a clear understanding of how many people will be directly affected.

There has been relatively scant data collected on the number of LGBTQ residents in the U.S., particularly intersex people — those born with physical traits that don’t fit typical definitions for male or female categories. That means lawmakers are often writing laws without the same kind of baseline information they might have for other demographic groups.

“We can’t study the impact without knowing the population,” said Christy Mallory, legal director of the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The Williams Institute is a think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity demographics to inform laws and public policy decisions.