by Jody L. Herman and Kathryn O’Neill

The 2019 novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, has impacted the health, livelihoods, and social lives of people around the world. COVID-19 symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath, with serious COVID-19 illness sometimes causing death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has described characteristics of those who are most vulnerable to serious COVID-19 illness, including those who are over age 65 and those who are immunocompromised or have other underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease, kidney disease, and asthma. In addition, COVID-19 and the response to the pandemic may uniquely harm those who were already economically and socially vulnerable, such as those experiencing homelessness. In this factsheet, we utilize weighted proportions from the U.S. Transgender Population Health Survey (“TransPop”), fielded from 2016-2018, and findings from other sources to describe characteristics that may increase vulnerability to COVID-19 for the 1.4 million U.S. adults who identify as transgender.

HEALTH VULNERABILITIES

One salient risk factor for serious illness from COVID-19 is being age 65 or older. In 2016, the Williams Institute estimated that approximately 217,000 adults who identify as transgender are age 65 or older. Moreover, transgender adults of all ages may have underlying health conditions which elevate their risk for serious COVID-19 illness. Approximately 319,800 transgender adults have one or more of the following underlying health conditions:

208,500 transgender adults have asthma;
81,100 have diabetes;
72,700 have heart disease;
74,800 are living with HIV.

A substantial portion of transgender adults, about 361,400, report being in fair or poor health, a measure that is associated with a variety of poor health outcomes. Additionally, 278,000 transgender adults are current smokers, which also increases risk for serious COVID-19 illness