AUSTIN — One in 10 has been attacked by a family member. Nearly 12 times the national average have attempted suicide in the past year. And almost 30 percent live in poverty.

This is just a snapshot of the everyday lives of transgender people living in America, according to an unprecedented new survey that polled nearly 28,000 respondents from Alaska to American Samoa. Five percent of those said they lived in Texas.

"It's very clear we still have a lot of work to do in all areas of life," said Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, " from how people are treated by the police to how we think about trans sex workers."

This is the center's second national survey of transgender people living in America. The first, performed in 2011, painted a similarly bleak picture of the discrimination, lack of understanding and violence that transgender people face on a nearly daily basis.

But Keisling and her team said despite their findings, public perception and acceptance of transgender people continues to slowly improve. For example, the number of transgender people who agreed to answer their survey has grown exponentially, providing more information about their experiences.

In 2011, only 266 people living in Texas responded to the center's survey request. That number almost quintupled last year, when nearly 1,490 transgender people from Texas were polled. State-specific data will be available early next year.

The respondents to the new survey were asked about everything from income and employment to health and sexual orientation. Education, citizenship, "outness" (whether the respondent was openly transgender) and transition experience were also polled.

The survey found that while "transgender" has become a catch-all phrase for those who identify as a different gender than found on their birth certificate, the respondents wrote in more than 500 more preferable terms by which they identify, including "non-binary," "genderqueer" and "agender."

Two-thirds of the respondents said they were OK using the term "transgender" to refer to themselves, but 18 percent still identified as "transsexual" — a term LGBT groups consider antiquated and discourage from use — and 5 percent identified simply as "crossdresser."

Nearly 1 in 3 said they began to feel their gender was different than that listed on their birth certificate before the age of 5, while 60 percent said they came to the realization before celebrating their 10th birthday. But the majority didn't begin openly identifying as transgender until they were much older — 37 percent between the ages of 16 and 20 and 21 percent between 21 and 25 years.

When it came to living openly, the vast majority who said they kept their transgender identity secret said they did so because people didn't understand and it would be easier not to say anything. Three in 5 respondents said they'd come out to their families, but 15 percent also said they'd run away or were kicked out of the house after doing so.

One in 10 had experienced violence at the hands of a family member because of their gender identity. Forty percent had attempted suicide in their lifetimes, nearly nine times the national average, while 7 percent had tried to kill themselves in the last year.

"I have struggled with depression and anxiety ever since puberty. I've failed classes, isolated myself, and considered suicide because of this. A year ago, I felt hopeless and had daily suicidal thoughts, and today I've got a plan for the future and haven't had a serious suicidal thought in months," one anonymous testimony read. "I firmly believe this is because of my transition. I feel so much more comfortable and happy than I've ever been."

In the year before the survey was taken, nearly half said they had been verbally harassed or physically attacked because they are transgender. The same percentage had been sexually assaulted in their lifetime.

Here are some of the survey's other findings:

62 percent consider themselves religious and/or spiritual; 21 percent identify as Christian.

8.7 percent , or more than 2,400 people, have performed some kind of military service.



Nearly one-third have been homeless at some point in their lives, with 12 percent experiencing homelessness in the last year because of anti-transgender discrimination.



Nearly 1 in 3 limited their food or drink intake so they could avoid using public restrooms, while 9 percent reported being denied access to the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity.



The survey, an anonymous online poll designed by the National Center for Transgender Equality's Sandy James, was open for nearly a month in August 2015. The final sample included 27,715 respondents from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and U.S. military bases overseas.

Most questions were closed-ended (they did not allow for write-in answers), not every respondent answered all questions and some were asked to complete follow-up questions based on their responses.