The overall number of people who identify as transgender in the U.S. is estimated to have increased over the past ~10+ years, particularly among those aged 13-24 years.
TL;DR: There has been an increase in the total number of people estimated to identify as transgender in the U.S. overall, especially among teens and young adults. This is most likely due to increased awareness and acceptance of gender diversity among younger generations and better data collection.
Data on this topic is limited, as U.S. public health surveys only started asking about gender identity in the past decade. There are now three time periods for which data has been collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that we can compare: 2014-2015, 2017/19 (youth)/2017-2020 (adults), and most recently 2021-2023 (adults)/2023 (youth).
During that interval, the percentage of people estimated to identify as transgender changed as follows:
Ages 13-17: ⬆️ from 0.7% to 1.4% to 3.3%
Ages 18-24: ⬆️ from 0.7% to 1.3% to 2.7%
Ages 25-34: 1.4% (newly reported as a separate age group in 2025)
Ages 35-64: ⬇️ from 0.6% to 0.5% to 0.4%
Ages 65+: ➡️ from 0.5% to 0.3% to 0.3%
Overall in the U.S. in 2021-2023, 1.0% (or about 2.86 million people) aged 13 and older identified as transgender.
*Note: The methods used to estimate transgender youth changed with the most recent report, which used the 2023 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey [web archive] for the first time — a higher-quality data source than was previously available. *The authors caution that the jump in the 13-17 age group should not be directly compared to prior estimates, as it may partly reflect improved data collection rather than an increase alone.*
So, the data show that more (younger) people are answering “yes” when asked if they consider themselves to be transgender. This could be because more teens and young adults are transgender than in the past, or it could be that the same number of people are transgender as there were before, but more people feel willing to disclose this on a survey. A similar trend happened in regards to left-handedness in the U.S. In the early 1900s, a time when there was a lot of stigma against being left-handed, less than 4% of the U.S. population admitted that they were south-paws. Over a span of a few decades, after it was acknowledged that left-handedness was normal and not to be shamed, the percentage rose to almost 12%, where it has remained steady ever since.
There is currently *no* evidence, however, to support the idea of a ‘social contagion’ phenomenon whereby youth suddenly experience gender dysphoria (i.e., discomfort or distress that can occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth) around the time of puberty onset due to social and peer influences. Indeed, the 2018 study that proposed this theory was found to have several methodologic issues that called into question the author’s conclusions, leading the author to have to publish a correction. A subsequent study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, which used sound methodology, found no evidence to support this hypothesis.
In general, current evidence does support the idea that one’s internal sense of gender identity is well-formed by age 7, but that it can take time for people to recognize the source of their discomfort or distress as gender dysphoria and to identify as transgender. Puberty, with its resultant bodily and social changes, can be a time that people begin to explore their gender identity and/or start to have the knowledge and language necessary to articulate they are transgender, but this doesn’t mean there is a ‘social contagion’ phenomenon at play.
Bottom line: The number of teens and young adults that report a transgender identity is most likely increasing due to greater awareness and acceptance of gender diversity among younger generations in the U.S. (and thus more people being open about their gender identity), and that they are being asked, not due to a social contagion phenomenon.
Here is more information from Those Nerdy Girls on differences between sex and gender, the science of gender identity, and how chromosomes determine our reproductive body parts.
See other resources below:
How Many Adults and Youth Identify as Transgender in the United States? – Williams Institute (August 2025)
‘Social contagion’ isn’t causing more youths to be transgender, study finds NBC news
Report Reveals Sharp Rise in Transgender Young People in the U.S. – The New York Times
The surprising geography of American left-handedness – The Washington Post
Canada is the first country to provide census data on transgender and non-binary people
Link to Original Substack Post
Note – this post was updated from the original post first published on August 12, 2023.
