Transgender Identity Really Has Fallen Among Young People

A firestorm erupted last week when the British professor and commentator Eric Kaufmann made a bold claim: Identifying as transgender is “in free fall among the young.”

But as journalist Benjamin Ryan rightly pointed out, the surveys Kaufmann referenced didn’t measure identifying as transgender. Instead, they measured identifying as nonbinary (note the chart says “not identifying as male or female,” which is not the same as identifying as transgender). Another journalist, Erin Reed, criticized Kaufmann’s analysis for not using survey weights. Kaufmann has since responded to both critiques.