June 2026
Impact Report
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Our Impact
At a Glance
In our first 18 months of service, our impact survey data shows a strong impact on confidence, competence and community in members at all tenures. We’ve taken 3 surveys – June 2025, October 2026, and June 2026 – as a part of our 6 month measurement canvas. In our most recent survey, our impact shows a full point in average confidence improvement that increases to 1.34 points improvement in the 12+ months member cohort. In this report, we’ll walk through how members show up to Transgender Zone and explore the impact we’ve had on members in great detail.
How confident members feel, before joining and today
Every member rates five areas of confidence: gender identity, transition steps, achieving their goals, presenting in public, and their support network. Each area is answered on the same 1 to 4 scale, and a member's position on the chart below is the average of their own five answers, so each bar counts people, not answers. Averaging five whole numbers is what puts the scores in steps of 0.2. Watch the whole distribution slide toward the confident end of the scale.
Across 164 members, average confidence rises from 2.09 before joining to 2.95 today. The share scoring below the midpoint of the scale falls from 68.9 per cent to 22.6 per cent, and the share scoring confident or better rises from 12.8 per cent to 53.0 per cent.
Members rate both states in one sitting, so "before joining TZ" is how they look back on where they started. Figures cover 164 members of three months or more.
Curated Testimonials
Bree
“In a world full of hate towards the transgender community, I know Transgender Zone is a safe welcoming place where I can be myself around like minded people. We share stories and tips, we can all come together and celebrate our milestones and support one another. Without a doubt I would not be here today if it wasn't for the beautiful people that make Transgender Zone what it is.”
Taylor
“Online research can be so noisy and contradictory that it's impossible to focus. In vulnerable moments, any piece of advice feels so important, so when 100 creators say 100 different things as the gospel truth, the path feels so muddy and unclear. Transgender Zone has been so focused that I’m able to parse the information succinctly, and can find the exact advice I need to hear when I'm feeling uncertain and vulnerable.”
Jemma
Before Transgender Zone, I would only step out in the small hours of the morning when there was nobody around. After joining and interacting with other members (some of whom are now close personal friends) I developed the confidence to present as my authentic self in public and even in situations where I was dealing with government departments. I would never have dreamt that was possible prior to joining Transgender Zone.
Mandy
"I live on a farm in a rural area. It's difficult to not feel alone and isolated, but seeing the shared life experiences of our community from across the world, has allowed me to not only trust my feelings more, but increased my confidence in my decision to transition."
Anonymous
“When I attend voice lessons, office hours, or especially the community circle events, it feels like the outside world fades away. For a little while, I forget about the fear and pressure, and I’m simply with others who are like-minded, supportive, and free from judgment. We look out for each other, which is not always a given in our lives. That kind of connection is incredibly rare.”
Xena
“Being a part of this community has been life changing, I feel like I've finally found my family. Family that understands you is a very powerful thing, and has resulted in a lot of healing for me. The live-sessions are amazing, like unfiltered joy for the first time - every time. I think that's how joy is meant to be felt.”
Impact Report Sections
Demographics and Day 1 Confidence
Explore who joins our community and how they are showing up – painting a strong picture of low confidence on arrival for many reasons.
Our Impact Over 18 Months
Explore how our June 2026 results compare to past cohorts, showing how we have used this data every 6 months to create a better impact as we grow.
Demographics &
Incoming Confidence
In our first 18 months, our primary demographic is women of transgender experience in the United States who typically started their transition between 40 and 49 years of age. At 18 months, we had 18 early adopters in the 1+ year category, giving us further insight into the long term impact of the platform. It’s worth noting that this is not a longitudinal study, but three open surveys compiled together.
Demographics Breakdown
| Tenure | n | Jun 25 | Oct 25 | Jun 26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Only a few days | 14 | 0 | 6 | 8 |
| Under 1 month | 28 | 13 | 9 | 6 |
| 1–2 months | 47 | 20 | 12 | 15 |
| 3–6 months | 68 | 43 | 14 | 11 |
| 6–8 months | 27 | 0 | 19 | 8 |
| 9–12 months | 38 | 0 | 27 | 11 |
| Over a year | 18 | 0 | 0 | 18 |
| Total | 240 | 76 | 87 | 77 |
We began asking for age at this level of detail in the second survey, so these figures pool the October 2025 and June 2026 waves (n=164) rather than all three.
| Band | n | Pooled % | Oct 25 | Jun 26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13–18 | 5 | 3% | 2 | 3 |
| 19–29 | 17 | 10% | 11 | 6 |
| 30–39 | 35 | 21% | 22 | 13 |
| 40–49 | 59 | 36% | 26 | 33 |
| 50–59 | 27 | 16% | 17 | 10 |
| 60–69 | 16 | 10% | 6 | 10 |
| 70+ | 5 | 3% | 3 | 2 |
| Total | 164 | 100% | 87 | 77 |
| Region | n | Pooled % | Jun 25 | Oct 25 | Jun 26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 186 | 77% | 55 (71%) | 70 (81%) | 61 (79%) |
| Europe | 29 | 12% | 14 (18%) | 10 (12%) | 5 (7%) |
| Canada | 18 | 7% | 7 (9%) | 3 (3%) | 8 (10%) |
| Australia | 3 | 1% | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| South America | 2 | 1% | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Africa | 1 | <1% | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Central America | 1 | <1% | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Not given | 1 | <1% | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Total | 241 | 100% | 77 | 87 | 77 |
| Identity | n | Pooled % | Jun 25 | Oct 25 | Jun 26 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Woman of transgender experience | 203 | 84% | 66 (86%) | 74 (85%) | 63 (82%) |
| Unsure and exploring | 12 | 5% | 1 (1%) | 5 (6%) | 6 (8%) |
| Genderfluid or genderqueer | 7 | 3% | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Man of transgender experience | 7 | 3% | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| Non-binary | 4 | 2% | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Two-Spirit or third gender | 4 | 2% | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| Other | 2 | 1% | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Not given | 2 | 1% | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 241 | 100% | 77 | 87 | 77 |
Confidence Is Low On Arrival To Transgender Zone
Ranges of scores show a strong picture in the goals, public presentation and someone to lean on questions. In all three, the average answer is below slightly confident and the 25th percentile bottoms out at the lowest possible confidence rating. The overall average just barely makes it into slightly confident at 2.09 (2.0 being slightly confident’s base).
But one category stands out, and that’s confidence in gender identity. For this category, the split is almost 50/50. This makes intuitive sense because to join a transgender support group, you need to at least have some idea that you’re trans whether or not you’re certain. This confidence can come just from the feeling of knowing you’re trans well before you know how to transition successfully.
Member impact survey · before joining
Where members were before they found us
Members rated their confidence in five areas as they remember it before joining Transgender Zone. Instead of reducing them to five averages, this chart shows how far apart they were.
How to read it
The bar is the middle half of members
Each row runs from the 25th percentile to the 75th. A quarter of members sat to the left of the bar, a quarter sat to the right, and half of them landed inside it. A wide bar means members arrived in very different places from one another. A narrow bar means they arrived in much the same place.
The dot is the average, and it hides the most
A mean of 1.87 on presenting publicly reads like "slightly confident." What actually happened is that 79 members chose "not at all" and 41 chose "confident" or better. Almost nobody was average. We put the mean inside the range so you can see how much it flattens.
Three bars start at the bottom of the scale
On transition goals, presenting publicly and having someone to lean on, the bar cannot start any further left. That is the floor, not a low score: at least a quarter of members chose "not at all confident," and on presenting publicly it was nearly half. Those rows describe people who arrived with no confidence at all in that part of their lives.
Members rated "before joining" and "today" in a single sitting, looking back.
Where Does The Lack of Confindence Come From?
We dug through all qualitative data from members to find out why their confidence was so low when joining. What we found were stories that showed a range of reasons from geographical isolation, poor family dynamics, and so much more.
Our Impact on Members Since
Founding Transgender Zone (18mo)
Our mission is to bring confidence, competence, and community to trans folks around the world. We measure our impact primarily to understand if Transgender Zone is succeeding in this mission, and the results have been strong in the first 18 months.
Membership to Transgender Zone Improves Confidence Increasingly Over Time
Across all areas we measure, we’ve seen an excellent increase in confidence of our members. We’ve also learned that confidence is something that can continue to grow. In our latest survey, we were able to measure confidence in those from 12-18 months for the first time, and we saw a disproportionately large spike compared to other cohort leaps.
We do see an interesting dip in the 1-2 month cohort, and we’ve started to call this the “reality check” period. Members show up, learn a ton fast, make friends… and then realize that transition is harder than they expected.
Complete Lack of Confidence is Eliminated After One Year
We found that members who commit to the platform for a full year of members no longer have any areas rated “not at all confident.” This elimination of a complete lack of confidence shows that we have a system that makes deep change over a year.But even after just a few days on the platform, not at all confident answers drop from 34% to under 10%, showing an immediate impact.
While we strive to build confidence, removing a complete lack of confidence is a higher priority. Often, complete lack of confidence is what leads to serious consequences, so removing it is a life-saving form of support.
How Our Impact Has Improved Over Time
With data from each survey, we’ve optimized our services to improve our impact. By looking at results of each survey on their own, we found that our impact has been consistently improving because of these interventions.
Making Transgender Zone a Safer Space Over Time
Trust is an extremely important aspect of our community. A member that feels they can share their best and worst, have someone to lean on, and overall feels relief when logging in is a member that we’ve served well. Because this is an evolving condition of a community rather than something you set and forget, these surveys have been used to determine the sense of safety in our members and make improvements based on it.
Members cite two reasons they cannot share their best and worst: anxiety around sharing because they are socially anxious folks, and that sharing their worst would mean sharing some seriously heavy things. It was surprising to us that some members felt that sharing their worst would be too much for other members and chose not to share. We are working towards a solution on both of these issues.
The share of folks that disagree they can share their best and worst on Transgender Zone has decreased over time
Steady decrease in disagreement over time, but getting this closer to 0% is important.
