About

Trans PULSE Canada is a national community-based survey of the health and well-being of trans and non-binary people in Canada. While this is a new study with data collection coming in the summer of 2019, the study traces its origins back to conversations between trans community members and allies at the Sherbourne Health Centre and The 519 in Toronto back in 2005. These early conversations led to the development of Trans PULSE (Ontario), a multi-mode study that collected focus group, survey, and interview data from trans people in Ontario. The original survey was in 2009-2010, and the results were produced into reports, e-bulletins, and academic papers that provided a foundation for policy change in Canada.

Trans PULSE Canada grew out of three concerns. First, while the original Trans PULSE Project published data on trans youth, Indigenous gender-diverse people, and trans people of colour, and gay and bi trans guys, we often had a small sample size for these more targeted analyses and couldn’t do all of the analyses that were important to community members. Second, there are still whole provinces and territories without any source of all-ages data on trans and non-binary people. Third, it’s been a decade since we started collecting Trans PULSE data in Ontario, and so much has changed. Our earlier results have been part of changes to identity documents, human rights, and protection of youth, but these and other changes also make the data outdated. So, Trans PULSE Canada was born out of the need for more information on priority population groups, information for all regions, and updated data in Ontario.