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Writer's pictureJoanne Jacobs

Transgender teens are unhappy -- or unhappy teens blame their gender

"About 3.3 percent of high school students identify as transgender and another 2.2 percent are questioning their gender identity," according to a 2023 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reports Azeen Ghorayshi in the New York Times.


That's more than double the 1.4 percent transgender estimate in a 2022 report by UCLA's Williams Institute. That was based on CDC data collected in 2017 and 2019 in 15 states.


Transgender and gender-questioning teenagers are much more likely than others to say they're depressed, lonely and targets of bullying at school.


"Roughly 70 percent of transgender and questioning students reported feeling persistent sadness or hopelessness for a period of more than two weeks in the past year, compared with half of cisgender girls and 26 percent of cisgender boys," reports Ghorayshi. "Ten percent of transgender students reported receiving medical treatment from a doctor or nurse for a suicide attempt in the past year, compared with 2.6 percent of cisgender girls and 1 percent of cisgender boys."


Are these kids acutely depressed because they're trapped in the wrong bodies? Or are depressed teenagers now encouraged to believe that their problems are caused by their gender identity?


Teenage girls are much more likely to suffer from depression than boys, and girls also are much more likely to declare themselves transgender or non-binary.

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