Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
      • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito argued abortion isn’t an economic issue. But is that true?

        Chabeli Carrazana · May 4
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • The 19th Explains: Why the nursing shortage isn’t going away anytime soon

        Mariel Padilla · September 23
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8
      • Voter ID laws stand between transgender people, women and the ballot box

        Barbara Rodriguez · October 14
      • Emily’s List expands focus on diverse candidates and voting rights ahead of midterm elections

        Errin Haines · August 30

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th News(letter)

News from reporters who represent you and your communities.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting...

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

A community group holds a memorial vigil on Transgender Day of Remembrance. Pictures of the victims are displayed on a candlelit alter with their names and ages.
A community group holds a memorial vigil on Transgender Day of Remembrance for the transgender people murdered in America over the last year in November 2021, in New York City. (Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis/Getty Images)

Health

For years, Black trans women have been told their life expectancy is 35 years. That’s false.

While there’s no evidence to support the statistic, experts do worry that it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for Black trans women.

Kate Sosin

LGBTQ+ reporter

Kate Sosin portrait

Published

2022-08-17 15:56
3:56
August 17, 2022
pm

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Raquel Willis doesn’t remember the first time she heard the statistic, only that it struck her as terrifying and true. It went like this: The average life expectancy for a Black transgender woman was 35 years.

“Even 10 years ago, I had no access to understanding what a life beyond the present moment could look like for me as an openly Black trans woman,” said Willis, 31, an author and activist. “This kind of American dream has never fully considered the existence of trans people, queer people and, of course, not those of us who are racialized Black.” 

The stat has been repeated year after year. Major media outlets report it as fact. Four years ago, another Black trans activist — Ashlee Marie Preston — launched the #ThriveOver35 social media campaign, aimed at showing examples of Black trans women living past 35 years old. 

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

There was only one problem with the campaign: While that statistic felt true — and transgender women of color are more likely to be murdered than their cisgender female peers, experts say — it’s false. 

Experts worry that this statistic gives trans people, especially Black trans people, an expiration date on their lives and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

“What you are doing is creating huge levels of fear, which causes high levels of stress, which will actually cause people to die younger,” said Laurel Westbrook, a professor of sociology and the author of “Unlivable Lives: Violence and Identity in Transgender Activism.” 

There are different theories about how this statistic originated.

Westbrook, who has researched the lives and deaths of transgender people, recalled that a presenter at the Philadelphia Transgender Health Conference arrived at that conclusion by averaging the ages of one year’s transgender homicide victims, who were naturally younger. 

“Most homicide victims are 30 or younger,” said Westbrook. “That doesn’t mean that most trans people will die by the time they’re 30.”

Most experts, however, cite another source. Avery Everhart, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, has also researched the life expectancy statistic and says it originates from a 2015 report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on violence against LGBTQ+ people in Latin America. The document anecdotally mentions that, “Latin American organizations report that the life expectancy of trans women in the region is between 30 and 35 years of age.”

It makes no mention of the United States, nor does it provide data, Everhart points out. 

“So it’s not even actually a true statistic,” Everhart said. 

  • More from The 19th
    People hold photos of murdered transgender people.
  • 2021 is now the deadliest year on record for transgender people
  • How did trans people become a GOP target? Experts say it’s all about keeping evangelicals voting
  • The U.S. still has only 5 Black trans elected officials after November 2

But the stat does tap into something real, experts say. 

Transgender advocates have recorded transgender homicides annually since 1998 when Rita Hester, a Black transgender woman, was brutally murdered in her Boston apartment two days before her 35th birthday. Hester was killed just weeks after gay White college student Matthew Shepard. Unlike Shepard’s, her case got little attention, and even LGBTQ+ media misgendered her. 

Since that time, LGBTQ+ rights groups have worked to track transgender deaths, often correcting police departments and media reports that misgender the victims. As a result, the number of reported transgender homicides has steadily increased as awareness has grown over the last 24 years. But advocates say the increased visibility of trans lives has been a blessing and a curse.

The past three years have seen unprecedented attacks on transgender people in state legislatures. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 13 states have signed anti-LGBTQ+ bills into law this year. 2021 saw the highest spike in anti-trans murders ever recorded at 57, a number that nearly doubled since past years. Some advocates say that those numbers are related, that as legislative attacks on trans people increase, violence against trans people also trends upward.

But Westbrook cautions that it’s hard to know how anti-trans bills and anti-trans violence are related because federal and local governments have never recorded transgender homicides in a systemic way. 

“White trans people, particularly White trans men, are very unlikely to be killed in the United States,” said Westbrook. Trans women of color do face elevated rates of violence, Westbrook added, but those rates are not necessarily higher than cisgender Black men. 

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

You have been subscribed!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

“And that is not because trans folks are protected in some way but because the homicide rates in the United States, for particularly young cis men of color, are so incredibly high,” Westbrook said. 

In 2017, Alexis Dinno, an associate professor at Portland State University, analyzed the homicide rates of transgender people. She found that transgender women of color were more likely to be murdered than cisgender women. Data also shows that transgender women face staggering rates of employment discrimination, lack of access to health care and high rates of family rejection. 

Willis says the statistic once communicated an urgency in the community. Today, she thinks trans people need more complicated stories. 

“I think several years ago, it served a purpose to have such a focus on this pattern of violence, and we still have to continue to try and alleviate that issue,” she said. “But if we are not balancing the discussion around death with the discussion of the fullness of trans people of color and our lives, then we’re not giving a full story of what is possible once you are living authentically and vulnerably.” 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

Help sustain what we started

Your monthly investment is critical to our sustainability as a nonprofit newsroom.

Donate Today

Become a member

Up Next

A protester holds a large image of President Biden looking bewildered and surrounded by question mark and thinking face emojis. Under the image are the words

Health

Prisons and jails are ‘potentially high-risk’ for monkeypox but won’t fall under a vaccine mandate

Public health experts say the CDC’s decision not to proactively vaccinate those behind bars threatens the health of the public at large.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram