Report: Recent years see a sharp rise in youth transgenderism

The number of American youth who identify as transgender has almost doubled in recent years.

A new report conducted by the UCLA Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy relied on government health surveys conducted from 2017 to 2020, and estimated that 1.4% percent of 13- to 17-year-olds and 1.3% of 18- to 24-year-olds identified as transgender whereas 0.5 percent of all adults identify as such.

The Williams Institute’s data concluded that 18% of all people who identify as transgender are between the ages of 13 and 17-years-old, and there are 1.6 million people aged 13 and up in the U.S. who identify as transgender.

There are roughly 700,000 people between the ages of 13- and 24-years-old who identify as transgender. In the American South, there are 102,200 transgender youth between the ages of 13- and 17- years old; in the Midwest, there are 54,500; in the North East, there are 61,700; and in the American West, including Alaska and Hawaii, there are 81,700.

The New York Times reported that this new data from the Williams Institute’s previous report in 2017 marks a significant rise specifically in youth transgenderism.

Experts on transgender youth believe that children now have the advanced language skills and capacity for social acceptance that emboldens them to explore their gender identities whereas older adults may feel more constrained.

Dr. Angela Geopferd, the self-identifying nonbinary medical director of the Gender Health Program at Children’s Minnesota hospital, indicated that exploring gender identity is merely an aspect of being a young person.

She said, “It’s developmentally appropriate for teenagers to explore all facets of their identity — that is what teenagers do. And, generationally, gender has become a part of someone’s identity that is more socially acceptable to explore.”

The nonbinary children’s physician said that young people exploring their gender identities is a phenomenon for which society must “make space.”

Geopferd said, “We as a culture just need to lean into the fact that there is gender diversity among us, 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.”

Data from the Williams Institute indicates that young people account for a disproportionately large share of the American transgender population while older adults had a “disproportionately small” share.

Only 10% of the transgender population consists of people over the age of 65.