A new report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law warns that 210,800 transgender people in the U.S. could face barriers to casting their ballots because of voter ID laws—an all-time high in the 12 years the institute has been researching the issue. The study authors, as well as transgender rights advocates, say they are not surprised that potential disenfranchisement is on the rise as voter ID laws become more common and more strict, presenting voting barriers for transgender people as transgender voters are less likely to have accurate IDs or IDs at all.

“Multiple states, including Texas and Florida, have acted to make it more difficult for transgender residents to update their IDs,” said Williams Institute Research Data Analyst Lindsay Mahowald, one of the authors of the report. “If this trend continues, the number of transgender voting-eligible people who experience barriers to voting because they do not have updated IDs may increase.”

Mahowald also said that the laws are being enforced by poll workers who should be trained in better assisting transgender voters.

“Different poll workers may treat trans people differently, so trans people’s experiences may vary depending on the poll workers they encounter,” Mahowald said.

The Statistics Around Voting Barriers for Transgender People

The study states that about 825,100 transgender adult citizens in the U.S. will be eligible to vote in the November 2024 general election, and 647,700 of them live in states that conduct their elections primarily in-person at polling places as opposed to by mail only. “An estimated 43% of these individuals (276,500) lack identity documents that correctly reflect their name or gender,” the report states.

B.C. is a voter in Wisconsin, one of the 13 states with the strictest voter ID laws identified in the Williams Institute report. He presents as male and has an “F” on his IDs, and while he hasn’t had a poll worker harass him or deny him his voting rights, voting can still be an uncomfortable experience.

“By handing this stranger my ID, I’m essentially coming out to them as trans, and they can do with that information whatever they want. It’s a moment of not having control,” he said. “I’m generally pretty open about my trans identity, but I don’t often go around telling strangers that I’m trans, and so having that moment where I don’t get to choose if they know that I’m trans, is unnerving, and it does produce some extra anxiety.”

Read the full article about voting barriers for transgender people by Sarah Prager at Prism Reports.