U.S. report reveals sharp rise in transgender young people
The number of young people who identify as transgender has nearly doubled in recent years, according to a new report that captures a stark generational shift and emerging societal embrace of a diversity of gender identities.
The analysis, relying on government health surveys conducted from 2017-20, estimated that 1.4% of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3% of 18- to 24-year-olds were transgender, compared with about 0.5% of all adults.
Those figures illustrated a significant rise since the researchers’ previous report in 2017, although the analyses used different methods.
Experts said young people increasingly have the language and social acceptance to explore their gender identities, whereas older adults may feel more constrained. But the numbers, which vary widely from state to state, also raise questions about the role of peer influence or the political climate of the community.
“It’s developmentally appropriate for teenagers to explore all facets of their identity — that is what teenagers do,” said Dr. Angela Goepferd, medical director of the Gender Health Program at Children’s Minnesota hospital, who was not involved in the new analysis. “And, generationally, gender has become a part of someone’s identity that is more socially acceptable to explore.”
The notion of what it means to live as a transgender person is also shifting. Goepferd, who is nonbinary, noted that many teenagers would not necessarily want or need hormones or surgeries to transition to another gender, as was typical of older generations.
The surveys, created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did not ask younger teenagers about nonbinary or other gender identities, which also have been rising in recent years. But nearly one-quarter of the adults in the surveys who said they were transgender identified as “gender nonconforming.”
“We as a culture just need to lean into the fact that there is gender diversity among us,” Goepferd said. “And that it doesn’t mean that we need to treat it medically in all cases, but it does mean that we as a society need to make space for that.”
Although the total estimated number of transgender people was small — about 1.6 million people ages 13 and older, or about 0.6% of the population — trans identification in recent years has become political dynamite, driven in part by the rise in minors seeking medical treatments. Republican legislators across the country have sought to prohibit such care by criminalizing doctors or investigating parents for abuse, which professional medical groups have condemned.
The new data was analyzed by researchers at the Williams Institute, a research center at the UCLA law school that produces highly regarded reports on the demographics, behaviors and policy concerns of LGBTQ populations in the United States.
The study found people ages 13-25 accounted for a disproportionately largely share of the transgender population. Although younger teenagers made up just 7.6% of the total U.S. population, they made up roughly 18% of transgender people. Likewise, 18- to 24-year-olds made up 11% of the total population but 24% of the transgender population.
Older adults had a disproportionately small share: Although 62% of the total population, only 47% of transgender people were 25 to 64. And while 20% of Americans are older than 65, that age group makes
up only 10% of the total number of transgender people nationwide.
The Williams Institute used data from two national sources: the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, administered to adults across the country, and its Youth Risk Behavior Survey, given in high schools. The surveys, which were either conducted over the phone or in person, collect data on demographics as well as a variety of medical and behavioral information, such as smoking habits, HIV status, nutrition and exercise.
Starting in 2017, the high school survey included an optional question asking if the student was transgender. From 2017 to 2020, 15 states included this question in their high school surveys, while 41 states included the question for adults at least once in that time period.
The Williams Institute used this data, along with statistical modeling of demographic and geographic variables, to arrive at its estimates of the transgender population nationwide.
“It’s important to know that trans people live everywhere in the United States, and trans people are a part of communities across the country,” said Jody Herman, senior scholar of public policy at the Williams Institute and the lead author of the report. “We use the best available data, but we need more and better data all the time.”