Transgender and Gender-Diverse People Disproportionately Report Problems While Trying to Vote Compared to Cisgender People

Transgender and gender-diverse (TGD) people may encounter barriers when exercising their voting rights, such as potential differences between official records and the names, gender markers, and expressions TGD people go by. Do TGD people disproportionately encounter problems while voting in the United States, and are there associations with statewide policies affecting identity documents (IDs)? TGD people likely encounter voting problems due to societal stigma. Policies may also feedback and structurally stigmatize TGD people. States regulate how people may update their gender markers on their IDs and the presentation of an ID to vote. Using three years of data, we find that TGD people are more likely to experience problems when attempting to vote than cisgender people. We find that state policies related to updating IDs and state voter ID laws affect these differences. Policy feedback and structural stigma situate why transgender people have barriers to voting.