Elijah Nicholson-Messmer
7 min read
Retirement planning with clients is never simply about the numbers, advisors say. That's equally the case when it comes to advising transgender people for retirement.
More than 9% of U.S. adults identified as LGBTQ+ in 2024, up 66% from 2020, according to the most recent Gallup poll. Transgender people make up about 14% of all LGBTQ+ Americans and 1.3% of all U.S. adults.
As more people openly identify as trans, financial advisors can help their practices and their clients by better understanding some of the unique considerations that come up when advising trans clients.
Financial advisors specializing in LGBTQ+ clients often find that retirement planning for transgender individuals isn't fundamentally different from working with others. But staying attuned to a few essential considerations can make what might otherwise be an overwhelming process much smoother.
Advisors say that broaching the retirement conversation can be difficult for trans clients whose attention is on more immediate needs, like obtaining gender-affirming surgery or relocating to more accepting places.
"For clients who are pre-transition or in transition, I don't think focusing on retirement makes sense," said Lindsey Young, founder of Quiet Wealth in Baltimore, Maryland. "First of all, most trans people pre-transition, they're constantly thinking about transition, and so they can't think longer term because it's constantly on their mind. And when they're in transition, they're thinking about transition a lot more. When people get through transition and they're a lot happier and they feel a lot more stable, then they're in a place where you can start thinking about long-term planning."
READ MORE: LGBTQ retirees face specific challenges. Here's how advisors can help
For Landon Tan, founder of Query Capital in Brooklyn, New York, potential relocation costs have become an increasingly common consideration for many of his trans clients.
"I think as the climate of transphobia increases, there are more people who are leaving their communities to go find a place where they're going to be kind of legally allowed to exist," Tan said. "I also have a lot of clients who are thinking about leaving the country because of the increasing transphobic climate federally as well."
Making that move can be a costly but necessary decision for some clients, Tan said.
"The decision to move to another country is not really a financial decision, per se, because it's so deeply personal," Tan said. "It … really kind of defines your day-to-day experience of existing. So I definitely talk it over with clients, if they're thinking about it, and then other clients who really know that that's what they want to do, then I would kind of take their lead, and I would point them in the right direction."
