Youth Assigned Female at Birth Are No More Likely to Identify as Transgender or Gender Diverse Than Those Assigned Male at Birth: Study

A study, “Sex Assigned at Birth Ratio among Transgender and Gender Diverse Adolescents in the United States,” found that, contrary to past research with smaller samples, teens assigned female at birth are not overrepresented among transgender or gender diverse adolescents in the U.S. Furthermore, the study found that the percentage of teens openly identifying as transgender did not increase between 2017 and 2019. Researchers, using data from the 2017 and 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, explored a hypothesis that suggested that more adolescents who were assigned female at birth have identified as transgender or gender diverse as a result of “social contagion;” the new findings do not support this hypothesis. The study, published in the September 2022 Pediatrics (published online Wed. Aug. 3) analyzed 91,937 adolescents in 2017 and 105,437 adolescents in 2019 from 16 states that participated in the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey. In 2017, 2,161 (2.4%) participants identified as transgender or gender diverse, with a ratio of those assigned male at birth compared with those assigned female at birth of 1.47:1. In 2019, 1,640 (1.6%) participants identified as transgender or gender diverse, with a ratio of those assigned male at birth compared with those assigned female at birth of 1.16:1. The shift in the sex ratio toward more adolescents assigned female at birth was driven by a decrease in the proportion of those assigned male at birth openly identifying as transgender or gender diverse. The authors found rates of bullying victimization and suicidality were higher among transgender and gender diverse youth when compared to their cisgender peers, including their cisgender sexual minority peers, arguing against the notion that some youth openly identify as transgender or gender diverse in an attempt to flee the stigma of being a sexual minority.

###

The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.