Scotland’s Census 2022 - Sexual orientation and trans status or history

An Accredited Official Statistics publication for Scotland

Published: 27 June 2024

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This report presents census data on LGBTQ+ people for the first time.  

This data was collected through two new questions. One on trans status or history. And one on sexual orientation. 

Census data will help government, charities and other service providers to understand more about the needs of LGBTQ+ people.

Trans status or history

Question background

Scotland’s Census included a new question on trans status or history in 2022. This means we do not have comparable data for previous censuses.

The question was “Do you consider yourself to be trans, or have a trans history?”. People were asked to tick “No” or “Yes”. People who ticked “Yes” were asked to describe their trans status (for example, non-binary, trans man, trans woman).

Transgender or trans is a term used to describe people whose gender is not the same as the sex they were assigned at birth.

This was a voluntary question for people aged 16 and over. In 2022 5.92% of people did not answer the trans status question. The percentage of people who were trans or have a trans history is calculated using the overall population (aged 16 and over), not just those who answered the question.

In this report we refer to people who consider themselves to be trans, or have a trans history as trans people.

Key points

The census found that there were 19,990 trans people in Scotland. This is 0.44% of people aged 16 and over.

Figure 1 shows how trans people responded across five high level categories.

Almost half (45.2%) of trans people identify as ‘non-binary’. This is 9,030 people in total.

One in six trans people identified as trans men (3,310). A similar number of people identified as trans but did not provide any further detail (3,110). A similar number of people identified as trans women (3,090).

The ‘other trans status or history’ category (1,450 people) includes a number of different groups of people. The most common responses in this category were ‘genderfluid’, ‘agender’ and ‘genderqueer’. Those three different groups account for around two thirds of people in this category.

The census in England and Wales asked a question on gender identity in 2021. Further information on the data from the two different questions is available in our quality assurance report.

Figure 2 shows how the number of trans people varied across age groups. There were more trans people in younger age groups than in older groups.

Almost half (46.1%) of trans people were aged 16 to 24. Around a quarter (26.0%) were aged 25 to 34.

For comparison, 12.8% of all people aged 16 and over were aged 16 to 24. And 15.3% were aged 25 to 34.

We can also look at the number of trans people as a percentage of the population in each age group. The percentage of trans people decreases as we go from younger to older age groups.

On average around 14 in every 1,000 people aged 16 to 29 were trans (1.36%). In the 30 to 39 age group 4 in every 1,000 people were trans (0.42%). And in the 40+ age group around 1 in every 1,000 people was trans (0.15%).

The four ‘City’ council areas have the highest percentage of trans people relative to their population (aged 16 and over). Dundee City had the highest percentage (0.91%), followed by City of Edinburgh and Glasgow City (both 0.77%), and Aberdeen City (0.58%).  

We know that the percentage of trans people is higher in younger age groups. The spread across council areas reflects this. The four ‘City’ council areas have large student populations and relatively high numbers of young people.