We don’t know why ten times as many kids and young adults, as compared with older adults, identify as trans in the U.S. But is it wrong to try and ...
The Center for Disease Control released a survey recently with some eye-popping numbers: In 2023, 3.3 percent of U.S. high-school students identified as transgender, and 2.2 percent identified as questioning. The ensuing media coverage — except National Review, of course — failed to communicate that this isn’t normal. According to a 2022 survey from UCLA, only 0.5 percent of U.S. adults (aged 18+) identify as transgender. In other words, the number of children who identify as transgender in U.S. high schools is five times the number of adults who identify as such among the American population.
Tragically — and unsurprisingly — 69 percent of questioning students and 72 percent of transgender students “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.” Approximately 26 percent of transgender and questioning students attempted suicide in the past year. The CDC concluded that “more effort is necessary to ensure that the health and well-being of youths who are socially marginalized is prioritized.”
The numbers become more extreme when comparing Generation Z (those roughly between the ages of twelve and 27) with their older counterparts. A 2022 Pew Survey reveals that 3.1 percent of U.S. adults aged 18-25 identify as transgender. However, only 0.3 percent of older U.S. adults identify as transgender. When integrating the results of the all surveys above, it is revealed that high-school students and young adults (aged 18-25), together, are ten times more likely to identify as transgender than are older adults in the U.S.
In other words, Gen Zers (those born between 1996 and 2010) are ten times more likely to identify as transgender than are Millennials, Gen Xers, and Boomers.
In the face of such results, it sure seems like something is going on. It is a strange question to ask: Are Americans becoming “more trans”? Or has the same fraction of the population always been transgender — with more individuals confidently living out their identity? What is the “normal” amount of transgender-identifying individuals among a given population?
In short, we have no idea — statistically speaking.
What is the cause of this “surge”? Is it a “surge” at all — or is it just that data is available for the first time on a previously hidden but constant reality? (Categories need to be created before they can be entered on a survey.)
Some theorize that the number of individuals who identify as transgender has increased so much in recent years because, for the first time in the country’s history, children and young adults are not being punished or shamed for their transgender identity. This theory presumes that the number of transgender individuals among the population has always remained fairly constant, but most repressed their identity or never publicized it (until now). This theory takes as its model the rise in left-handedness among the population in the past century — once teachers stopped punishing children for writing with their left hand, the number of “lefties” exploded from 3 percent to 12 percent today.
However, the percentage of the population which is left-handed (a little less than 12 percent) has remained markedly consistent since it plateaued the 1960s. Ought we to predict a similar, future “plateau” in the percentage of the population which identifies as transgender?
If the number of children who were left-handed multiplied by a factor of, say, five or ten in the past decade, media would report on the story as an extremely strange phenomenon. Scientists across disciplines would be scratching their heads and looking for answers. The very presence of a standard percentage of left-handedness among the general population (approximately 12 percent) would color any stark shift as extraordinary — the presence of a standard enables researchers to denote and study any marked deviations from that standard. Because left- or right-handedness is a physical trait, influenced by genetics, and clearly visible from a young age (even in the womb, a baby’s preferred hand can be discerned by doctors), a radical increase in population left-handedness would evidence strange shifts in the environment and the genome.
But “gender identity” is, of course, much harder to measure and study causally — but that has not stopped scientists from trying. Some have argued that gender dysphoria relates to in utero hormone exposure — with higher exposure to male sex hormones in utero resulting in a higher likelihood of gender dysphoria. Others have observed that there is a significant increase in the presence of personality disorders in persons with gender dysphoria compared to heterosexual persons without. Dutch scientists have demonstrated that significantly more autistic symptoms are observable in children and adolescents with gender dysphoria than typically developing children and adolescents — various hypotheses have been put forth to explain this possible co-occurrence (e.g., a role of resistance to change, stereotyped behaviors, or prenatal testosterone exposure), but nothing has been conclusively identified.
However, the most hotly contested theory of the origin of gender dysphoria is that of “social contagion.” Such a hypothesis was put forward by Dr. Lisa Littman — who was at Brown University at the time of publication — and received swift condemnation from the “scientific community.” Her 2018 paper, titled “Parent reports of adolescents and young adults perceived to show signs of a rapid onset of gender dysphoria” introduced the term “rapid onset of gender dysphoria” (ROGD) into the broader lexicon and focuses on the role of social media in the development of gender dysphoria. (The indomitable Caroline Downey has written on this extensively.)
Is it really so crazy to hypothesize that the paradigmatic shift in the social interactions of children and young adults via the rise of social media has had a major influence on their development? The public seems to accept this without issue when discussing topics divorced from gender identity. Many authors, therapists, and teachers (on both sides of the aisle) have publicized the harms of excessive social media on a child’s development without being condemned in mainstream media — merely googling the phrase “social media affects children’s mental health” leads to 351,000,000 results.
Of course, the correlation between excessive social-media use and mental-health issues, including depression, anxiety, and addiction, has been extensively studied and conclusively demonstrated. The relationship between excessive social-media use and gender dysphoria has been studied to a much lesser degree — in no small part due to the scientific community labelling such a pursuit as bigoted, ipso facto.
So, no, we don’t know with certainty why ten times as many kids and young adults, as compared with older adults, identify as trans in the U.S. But is it wrong to try and find out?