A decline in the number of American college students identifying as transgender is lending support to the view that the surge in transgender identification may have been more of a social trend than some sort of lasting demographic shift.
Eric Kaufmann, a professor of politics at the University of Buckingham, did his own analysis of the 2025 survey of U.S. undergraduates. It included a question asking students to identify their gender, with answer choices including: Man, Woman, Nonbinary, Agender, Genderqueer or genderfluid, Unsure, and Prefer not to say.
What Kaufmann found was that of 68,000 students, only 3.6 percent identified as a gender other than male or female. "By comparison, the figure was 5.2% in 2024 and 6.8% in both 2022 and 2023," Kaufmann wrote. "In other words, the share of trans-identified students has effectively halved in just two years."
1/ NEW: trans identification is in free fall among the young
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) October 14, 2025
(h/t @FIRE data in particular) pic.twitter.com/i0Z1BNcWG8
"Non-conforming sexual identity" also declined. However, American college students identifying as gay or lesbian rose by 10 percentage points since 2023.
2/ Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) October 14, 2025
Gay and lesbian are stable while heterosexuality has rebounded by around 10 points since 2023. pic.twitter.com/fKD4G1rwi5
Political beliefs cannot be given credit for the decline in transgenderism, as "Those beliefs remained stable throughout the 2020s," Kaufman wrote.
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4/ What explains the sudden reversal of trans and queer? It’s not because the kids became less woke, more religious or more conservative.
— Eric Kaufmann (@epkaufm) October 14, 2025
Those beliefs remained stable throughout the 2020s. pic.twitter.com/7GaSpfvATY
Some reasoning he did provide, however, was significant improvements in students' mental health. "Less anxious and, especially, depressed students are linked with a smaller share identifying as trans, queer or bisexual," he wrote.
He also said people could reasonably say that "The fall of trans and queer seems most similar to the fading of a fashion or trend. It happened largely independently of shifts in political beliefs and social media use, though improved mental health played a role."
The annual College Free Speech Rankings survey was conducted by the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). It surveys students nationwide to gauge their views on freedom of speech while also collecting demographic data such as gender and other identifying factors.
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