WEDNESDAY, Oct. 9, 2024 (HealthDay news) -- About 3% of U.S.
high school students identify as transgender, according to the first federal attempt to gather national data on trans teens. Another 2% question their gender identity, results from the 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed. The survey also found that trans and gender-questioning teens face much higher rates of bullying, persistent sadness and suicidal thoughts or behaviors compared with their cisgender peers.
For example, bullying occurs twice as frequently among transgender teens compared to cisgender students, data from the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention revealed.
“We have 5% 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 the CDC’s adolescent and school health division, told the New York Times . “That’s just heartbreaking.” The 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey is the first time the annual survey asked teens whether they identify as transgender or are gender-questioning.
The survey included 20,103 public and private school students in grades 9 through 12 from all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
About 40% of trans and gender-questioning students reported bullying, compared to 20% of cisgender girls and 15% of cisgender boys, survey .
