Back in October 2025, Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at the University of Buckingham in the U.K., released a striking study that showed a significant decline in the percentage of young adults who identified as transgender. Kaufmann received some criticism for his methodology, but he defended his findings, which were independently backed up by the work of Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University, using a different dataset and method.
Using data from the Cooperative Election Study (CES), Twenge found that among 18- to 22-year-olds, trans identification dropped by almost half from 2022 to 2024, while nonbinary identification more than halved between 2023 and 2024.
She concluded, “identifying as transgender really is in free fall among the young in the United States. So is identifying as nonbinary. In other words, Kaufmann was right (with what some consider the wrong data, but still right).”
Then, in December 2025, Ryan Burge, professor of practice at Washington University, replicated these findings once again. In his analysis, using the same data as Twenge, he found that the peak of transgender identification occurred in 2020, when 8.6 percent of 18 to 22-year-olds said they were transgender. The figure declined the following year to 5.6 percent. In 2024, the number dropped again to just 3.2 percent.
Burge also discovered that among 18 to 25-year-olds—a slightly wider age group—7.8 percent considered themselves transgender in 2020 while only 3.7 percent thought so in 2024. Finally, looking at the entire adult population, Burge noted that 2.5 percent of all adults called themselves transgender in 2020, while only 1 percent did so in 2024. He commented, “So yes, the decline was most acute among the youngest adults, but it wasn’t only them. The drop was widespread, showing up even among people born as early as 1985.”
Kaufmann feels pretty convinced that a definitive decline in transgenderism is occurring. He told The Epoch Times, “Of course, it is only a trend of two years, so it is not impossible for it to rebound back. But it tracks declines in queer sexualities which are observed across even more datasets. I see it as a decline in unconventional gender and sexual identity.”
Alongside the decline in transgenderism, Kaufmann’s analysis found a 10-point drop in the percentage of students identifying as something other than heterosexual or homosexual, such as pansexual, queer, questioning, bisexual, and asexual.
Results With a Caveat
These findings remain preliminary, and have been challenged. The Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine, for example, has released a report with different findings, though even this report indicates a plateauing of young adults identifying as trans. Kaufmann noted that this study was a self-selecting survey sample, which could explain the trajectory, which doesn’t match the other datasets he’s seen.
But whether transgenderism is dropping off steeply or simply flattening, both scenarios indicate a change, a reversal of the upward surge of recent years. What could be causing this potential reversal? In an article published at First Things, speaker and writer Jonathon Van Maren theorized that the decline in young people identifying as trans or some other unconventional sexual identity is linked to a shift in what’s considered trendy. “For a decade, identifying as LGBTQ was ‘cool’; to be anything but straight was to be celebrated, praised, and singled out for special attention, especially at schools and universities,” he wrote. “Thus, the staggering rise in young people identifying as LGBTQ was not accompanied by a rise in same-sex activity, as one would expect if the surge was due to increasing social acceptance of alternative sexual lifestyles.”
The growing range of sexual identities added to the rainbow flag allowed for more young people who were really basically heterosexual to remain relevant and participate in the zeitgeist. “New identities were invented so that everyone could be LGBTQ. … These new ‘orientations’ are merely on-ramps for straight kids who don’t want to be left out during Pride Month.” Like most trends, the popularity of being sexually diverse has begun to wane—which means fewer kids feel the peer-pressure or cultural pressure to participate.
This theory ties into the hypothesis that the rise in transgenderism and sexual divergence in the early 2020s was a social contagion—a process in which behaviors, beliefs, or disorders spread rapidly through a group by means of social mechanisms like peer pressure or social media trends.
Social Contagion?
If the spike in transgenderism was indeed due to social contagion and not an actual change in sexual preferences, nor formerly-closeted people feeling free to finally express themselves, then the recent decline in the identity isn’t surprising. Similar to a biological contagion, a social one tends to run its course in time and fizzle out.
Kaufmann found the social contagion theory probable. He told The Epoch Times, “I believe it is mainly about social contagion because it does not correlate strongly with changes in ideology or religiosity, and only partially with improved mental health post-pandemic.”
He also noted that increasing hostility from the public towards trans activism might have reduced people’s desire to belong to the movement. “I also think—but have not yet proven—that the public turning against the transactivist position may have altered the opinion climate in such a way as to weaken the prestige of trans, queer and nonbinary,” he said.
That prestige rose considerably in the period after Caitlin Jenner, during which time social justice and transgender keywords rose on social media and mainstream news.
Burge offered another explanation: politics. Burge identified an enormous plummet in the percentage of 18- to 22-year-old Republicans identifying as transgender between 2020 and 2024 (from 6.9 percent to 0.8 percent). He theorized that around 2021, the Republican Party made a firm stand against transgenderism, which would have discouraged young Republicans from adopting the identity. Perhaps even more significantly, Donald Trump again won the White House and has enacted policies against the spread of gender ideology.
The impact of individual activists and influencers shouldn’t be discounted, either. Matt Walsh’s satirical and controversial 2022 documentary “What Is a Woman?” challenged many of the narratives in support of transgenderism and sparked intense debate. J.K. Rowling’s continued mockery of gender ideology also undercut the movement. The stories of detransitioners like Chloe Cole made their way into cultural consciousness. These popular figures may have steered the national conversation toward a more critical stance on transgenderism.
The case isn’t closed on where the transgender movement is headed. But there are indicators that it may have run its course.
