A new study shows that the wave of young Americans identifying as transgender, nonbinary, or queer has fallen dramatically since its peak just two years ago.
It’s a decline that researcher Eric Kaufmann calls a “momentous post-progressive cultural shift.”
The report, “The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans,” by Kaufmann, a professor of England’s University of Buckingham, finds that the share of university students identifying as “not male or female” has nearly halved since 2023.
At schools such as Brown University in Rhode Island and Phillips Academy Andover in Massachusetts, nonbinary identification dropped from about 9% in 2023 to 3% this year.
In the massive FIRE survey of more than 50,000 students, that number fell from 6.8% to 3.6%.
“Trans, queer and bisexual identities are in rapid decline among young educated Americans,” Kaufmann wrote, calling it a reversal of what had seemed like an unstoppable trend.
He found similar shifts in sexual orientation.
The percentage of college students identifying as non-heterosexual fell roughly 10 points since 2023, driven mostly by fewer students calling themselves “queer,” “pansexual,” or “asexual.”
Meanwhile, heterosexual identification rebounded from 68% to 77% — a return to pre-2020 levels.
Kaufmann concluded that the downturn is not linked to religion, politics, or social-media habits.
“Trans and queer identification have declined even as levels of wokeness and irreligion have not,” he said.
“For young people, gender and sexual identity are now independent fashions that rise and fall separately from other cultural and political currents.”
He added that improved mental health after the pandemic may play a role but cannot fully explain the trend.
Kari Lake, the special adviser to the United States Agency for Global Media, praised the report’s findings on Newsmax’s Finnerty Wednesday:
“I’m glad President Trump said no more pushing this in schools,” she said.
“It’s a huge relief for parents to know their children aren’t being brainwashed and told they’re in the wrong body. …Those who fell for that will face a hard road of detransitioning.
“We still need justice for doctors who performed these mutilation surgeries on kids.”
Matt Schlapp, chair of the Conservative Political Action Conference, praised the findings as evidence that young people are moving away from “woke indoctrination.”
Schlapp pointed to financial motives behind the transgender industry.
“Follow the money,” he said.
“There’s big money in the plastic-surgery business, in pharmaceuticals — getting people on chemicals for life. … At the height of this, 30% of kids in some schools were questioning their gender.
“This propaganda really impacts kids.”
Lake agreed, warning that cultural over-sexualization had confused vulnerable youth. “
“I’m glad we’re seeing an end to this,” she said. “There’s no such thing as a transgender child.
“It’s a mental illness.”
Kaufmann’s 60-page analysis concludes that the downturn may signal “a momentous and unanticipated post-progressive cultural shift” among young Americans — one that defies the expectations of the cultural left in academia and the media.
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