The Tides Are Turning: Why Fewer Young People Are Identifying As Trans

A quiet but deeply hopeful shift is underway. After years of accelerating youth identification with transgender, nonbinary, and gender-questioning identities, we are now seeing signs of a retreat. For believers committed to truth, beauty, and the sanctity of created order, this is a moment worthy of celebration -- not complacency. But it also demands analysis: Why is the trend reversing? And how should the church, parents, and our social institutions respond?

The most prominent signal of change comes from the Centre for Heterodox Social Science's recent report, "The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans." According to their re-analysis of campus and national datasets, the proportion of undergraduates identifying as a gender other than male or female dropped to 3.6 % in 2025, down from 5.2 % in 2024 and 6.8 % in 2022-23. That's essentially a halving in just a couple of years.

Though the CHSS report is new and still under scrutiny, it mirrors anecdotal and qualitative accounts of youth "walking back" from radical gender identity. In a climate where self-expression once meant "you can be anything you want," that reversal is striking.

Below are five interwoven forces that seem to be contributing to the trend.

One of the most encouraging developments is the revival stirring in younger generations, especially young men, toward Christian faith. Church attendance and personal faith commitments are rising again among Gen Z, after years of decline. This is not just nominal religiosity. Pastors and youth leaders are noticing a restlessness among young people for disciplines, for roots, for real identity grounded in Christ.

In a culture that screams "define yourself," the gospel whispers, "You are known." That contrast is potent.

Where the sexual revolution promised identity and freedom, God offers a deeper narrative of belonging, purpose, and redemption. As more young hearts encounter that narrative, the flimsier identities offered by transient social trends lose their hold.

It is likely many youth have "experimented" with gender identities, only to feel unmoored, hollow, or misunderstood. For years the dominant narrative was that identifying as trans was bold, liberating, heroic. But some young people who tried it now speak of emptiness, relational losses, and identity confusion.

Because we have long minimized or silenced voices of those who recanted, their stories are now gaining a fragile platform. Detransitioners -- those who once affirmed a trans identity but later returned to their birth sex or abandoned the identity paradigm altogether -- are no longer invisible outliers. Their testimonies are painful, sobering, and instructive.

In previous studies of gender-diverse adults, a notable number reported some form of detransition. Common reasons include external pressures, regret over medicalization, sense of identity fading or shifting, and mental health struggles. Many detransitioners describe a lack of closure, social stigma, and limited clinical pathways for healing or reintegration.

These are not merely isolated cautionary tales. As more detransitioners speak publicly, they challenge the assumption that transition is always the right answer -- and they invite younger people to pause and reflect.

Too often, the conversation has been framed as either "affirmation saves lives" or "detransition is vanishingly rare." But the truth is more complex. The long-term effects of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, surgeries, and irreversible medical interventions are still poorly understood. Side effects such as cardiovascular risks, bone density issues, fertility loss, and irreversible changes are real possibilities.

Even among those who proceed, surveys show elevated psychological distress and poor self-rated health. While pro-trans studies often emphasize satisfaction rates, they tend to undercount or marginalize those suffering negative outcomes or regret.

In short: when some youth confront the medically mediated reality behind the rhetoric, they recoil. The idea that medical transition is a panacea gives way to the understanding that many wounds remain unhealed. Some have walked away completely, disillusioned, or worse -- quietly suffering in shame or regret.

The public mood is shifting. Americans are becoming more supportive of restrictions on trans policies -- especially for minors -- and more skeptical of overreaching institutional affirmation of gender ideology. Some states are redefining protections, requiring parental consent, banning elective transitions under 18, or limiting school policies that conceal information from parents.

Meanwhile, citizens, parents, and faith communities are pushing back against school "transition closets," distribution of chest binders or tuck-gear, and covert gender education. The pressure to acquiesce is being met by equal pressure to question, resist, and reclaim parental authority. Although the battle is far from over, institutions that once surged ahead unopposed now see resistance.

Also, the fashioning of a "fad narrative" is gaining ground. Media voices are beginning to describe nonbinary/genderqueer identity surges as socially driven waves rather than stable long-term identity shifts. Social fatigue sets in: if youth perceive that gender experimentation was a cultural performance, its allure dims.

We are now more than a decade into the explosion of "you can be anything" identities. The newer generations are growing up in a saturated identity market: queer, trans, nonbinary, agender, etc. When everything is a label, the labels themselves lose power. Some youth simply push back, opting for the default of "male/female" as a form of stability. Others retreat into apathy or silence.

For many, forced labels collided with real life: relationships, bodies, social consequence, and faith traditions are stubborn realities that resist continual redefinition. When the performative identity modes collide with relational and embodied realities, many young people reach a threshold of exhaustion.

This turning tide is not merely a cultural footnote -- it's an opening for strategic and faithful engagement:

Hope restored: The ground is no longer fully ceded to the ideological regime of gender fluidity. We can deploy the gospel of identity, incarnational truth, and renewal in more receptive soil.

Empathy and outreach: Detransitioners deserve compassion, not derision. The church especially must develop ministries of rest, restoration, and belonging to those who were deceived in the name of affirmation.

Parental advocacy: As institutions push clandestine policies (transition closets, concealment from parents, provision of binders or gender tools), the church and pro-family groups must strengthen laws, activism, and school accountability.

Cultural formation: The arts, education, media, and community life must offer counter-narratives of flourishing shaped by creation, not ideological imposition.

Spiritual renewal: The deeper battle remains the war for souls. We can't merely win identity politics; we must win hearts to Christ, so the gospel reshapes the contour of all identity.

Make no mistake: the gender revolution did not disappear overnight. Many schools still administer transition closets, hide information from parents, distribute binders or tuck underwear, and subtly encourage gender fluidity behind closed doors. The institutional momentum has not been vanquished -- only checked.

But what we are witnessing is a crack in the ideological dam. Young people are returning from the wilderness of identity experimentation, disillusioned, hurting, and seeking anchors. The Christian community now has an opportunity to receive them with grace, proclaim a deeper identity in Christ, and fortify the next generation with truth and love.

If we pray, study Scripture, engage culture, and build resilient families, this moment can become a hinge in history -- a turning point, not just in identity statistics, but in the trajectory of a generation. Let us not squander it.