3 percent of high schoolers identify as transgender: Research

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found 3.3 percent of high schoolers identify as transgender, and another 2.2 percent identify as questioning. 

Among the transgender students in the 2023 research published Tuesday, the CDC found 1 in 4 experience violence at school, the same number missed school due to safety concerns and 7 out of 10 feel sad or hopeless.  

“We have 5 percent of young people in the country who, because of the way they identify around their gender, are stigmatized, bullied, made to feel unsafe, feel disconnected at school and consequently have poorer mental health and higher risk for suicide than their cisgender peers,” Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC’s adolescent and school health division, told The New York Times. “That’s just heartbreaking.” 

Around 26 percent of transgender students considered suicide in the past year, compared to 5 percent of cisgender male students and 11 percent of cisgender female ones.  

Republicans, particularly at the state level, have increasingly targeted transgender Americans in recent years, advancing scores of laws to restrict their bathroom use, sports participation or use of pronouns matching their gender identity.

“The findings of this report suggest that more effort is necessary to ensure that the health and well-being of youths who are socially marginalized is prioritized,” the abstract of the study concluded.