(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of a 2023 survey on Tuesday, finding that 3.3% of U.S. high school students identified as transgender as of last year.
The CDC survey also found that 2.2% of students “identified as questioning.” The study, from the 2023 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey, was touted as the first of its kind.
“Until recently, population-based data describing the experiences of transgender students and students questioning whether they are transgender (questioning) have been limited,” the agency said Tuesday.
Of the trans-identifying students, about 47.5% of them identified as female.
There were also apparently fewer black transgender students.
“A lower proportion of transgender students identified as Black and higher proportion identified as White compared with cisgender or questioning students. In addition, for questioning students, differences in grade distribution were observed,” the CDC said.
The CDC survey found that trans students perform more poorly than their “cisgender” counterparts in just about every metric.
“Transgender and questioning students experienced a higher prevalence of violence, poor mental health, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and unstable housing, and a lower prevalence of school connectedness than their cisgender peers,” the CDC said, defining “cisgender” students as “those whose gender identity aligns with their sex assigned at birth.”
According to the CDC, some 40% of transgender and questioning students were bullied at school, and 69% of questioning students and 72% of transgender students experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness—a marker for experiencing depressive symptoms.
“Approximately 26% of transgender and questioning students attempted suicide in the past year compared with 5% of cisgender male and 11% of cisgender female students,” the CDC said.
Trans students are also gayer than cisgender ones, the survey found.
“Most cisgender students reported their sexual identity as heterosexual (79.4%), whereas only 8.7% of transgender students and 7.5% of questioning students identified as heterosexual. Transgender questioning students had a higher prevalence of questioning their sexual identity (20.4%) than both cisgender and transgender students (4.1% and 7.0%, respectively),” the CDC said.
“The prevalence of students who described their sexual identity in some other way was greatest among transgender students (32.8%), followed by transgender questioning students (23.2%), with only 2.9% of cisgender students identifying as such.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
