The Scottish Transgender Alliance recognises that there is a major need to gather evidence about transgender people’s current experiences in Scotland. Employers and service providers in Scotland require a formal evidence base about the issues faced by transgender people in order to better inform their Gender Equality Duty scheme decisions. The Scottish Transgender Alliance also uses evidence to better inform the direction and priorities of our equality development work. 

Therefore, the STA carried out a national survey of transgender people during the summer of 2007. The resulting STA Research Summary Report ‘Transgender Experiences in Scotland' was published in March 2008. The overall aim of the research was to provide greater insight into the lives and concerns of transgender people with a particular focus on public service provision.

The survey was distributed both as a paper survey and an equivalent secure online survey during the period July 2007 to September 2007 inclusive. Distribution was via transgender support groups and transgender and LGBT email news lists and gender identity clinics. A total of 71 valid, non-duplicate survey responses were received. This is the largest survey of transgender people in any published Scottish research to date. It also compares favourably with “Engendered Penalties”, the UK wide research carried out by Press For Change and commissioned by The Equalities Review, which was the largest cohort of any international research, and which had a Scottish sample of 73 people.