Lies, damn lies, and trans statistics
All data is dead on arrival, a carcass to be picked over as an artefact of the moment it was collated. Even “real time” data is simply a facsimile of reality, a subjective selection of data points that provided a distorted understanding of the world. No data set, no visualisation, and no data analysis can ever give you the sum total of the human condition. If anyone tells you that all the data points in the world will recreate what it is to be alive and human they are selling you a bridge. Yes, I am a data sceptic, and given the anti-trans rhetoric based on shonky data that scepticism is fully deserved.
Trans lives defy normative data analysis precisely because normative data collection does not account for people across the trans spectrum. To be trans is to inherently subvert data points, it is to say that the data collected about you up to the point you transition is wrong. Once you come out data collectors struggle to define and reshape you within the data precisely because “normal” only fits a narrow substrate of any society.
Which is why when trans datasets, such as the 2024 trans prison data, can never account for the full plurality of trans personhood. Trans data is always voluntary, and even when official documents have been changed unless a State actively seeks to track every person who changes their records being trans is not a matter of State…
