Hopefully, this fad is over, and we can return to normalcy.
The Centre for Heterodox Social Science released data showing that fewer young people identify as trans and queer.
The numbers decline more when asking people in lower grades, too, which means it’s likely to stick.
From Eric Kaufmann at UnHerd:
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which conducts a large annual survey of US undergraduates, polled over 60,000 students in 2025. My analysis of the raw data shows that in that year, just 3.6% of respondents 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. In other words, the share of trans-identified students has effectively halved in just two years.This trend is especially marked in elite institutions. Andover Phillips Academy in suburban Boston surveys over three-quarters of its students annually. In 2023, 9.2% identified as neither male nor female. This year, that number has crashed to just 3%. A similar story emerges at Brown University: 5% of students identified as non-binary in 2022 and 2023, but by 2025 that share had dropped to 2.6%.
Why the sudden change?
Mostly mental health!
The trans fad rose quickly when the states forced people to stay home and remain isolated.
Even for hermits like me, the isolation can take a toll on a person’s mental and emotional health. Cabin fever is a legit feeling:
It’s tempting to speculate about the reasons behind the rise and fall of trans and queer identities. Mental illness among American teens, for example, has fallen since 2021-22 — a pattern confirmed in the FIRE data from 2023-25. My analysis indicates that changes in mental health over time, especially depression, made a significant difference to the trajectory of trans and queer identities over this period.But the drop in mental health issues encompassed all social groups, including trans and queer youth. The post-pandemic decline in mental illness did not immediately trigger a drop in sexual and gender nonconformity; that shift came a year or two later, suggesting other forces are also at work. And while social media use may be in retreat in the world as a whole, Pew finds no change in the online behaviour of young Americans through to 2024. This does not seem to be what’s driving the retreat from alternative gender and sexual identity either.
As I said, it is primarily mental health. Kaufmann mentions “other forces are at work.”
Well, one force could just be societal norms. What I mean by that is fads come and go, whether it’s clothing, hairstyles, or even language.
Does everyone remember the early ’90s? Yes, the grunge era, which is probably my favorite (Alice in Chains forever!!). The casual look of those artists infiltrated the mainstream, and designers began creating haute couture centered around the flannel aesthetic.
The thing is, when something saturates the market, it becomes uncool.
When everyone is trans or queer, it’s no longer cool to be trans or queer because it doesn’t make you different. You’re the same as everyone else.
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