A newly released report suggests that transgender identification among members of Generation Z in the United States has lost momentum after peaking in 2023.

Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at the University of Buckingham in the UK, released a report titled “The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans,” an analysis of college-age students in the United States using seven data pools.

The report was published by the Centre for Heterodox Social Science, which describes itself as promoting open inquiry in “progressive academia.” The report indicates that transgender identification among college students is half of what it was when the trend peaked in 2023, having dropped to 4 percent from 7 percent.

​Likewise, those who identify as “nonbinary,” meaning neither male nor female, has dropped by half in three of five data sources used.

​The report suggests that there has been a return of heterosexual identification as well, although numbers remain lower than in 2020. The number of those identifying as gay and lesbian has remained relatively stable.

​The indication is that the downward transgender trend will continue.

The report indicates that for the 2024 to 2025 period, fewer first-year college students identified as “trans or queer” compared with seniors—the opposite of what the data show for the 2022 to 2023 period.

​“This suggests that gender/sexual non-conformity will continue to fall,” Kaufmann wrote on X in a post sharing his findings.

​Kaufmann likened the reduction in transgender and nonbinary identities to a fad.

​“The fall of trans and queer seems most similar to the fading of a fashion or trend,” he wrote. “It happened largely independently of shifts in political beliefs and social media use, though improved mental health played a role.

​“Less anxious and, especially, depressed students [are] linked with a smaller share identifying as trans, queer or bisexual.”

​Main data sources for the study include surveys from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, the Higher Education Research Institute freshman survey, the Phillips Academy Andover preparatory school, Brown University student polling from the Brown Daily Herald, the Cooperative Election Study, the General Social Survey, and youth data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Andrew Brown, vice president of policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, called the report “fascinating” but cautioned about reading too much into it, saying that further analysis and data are needed to establish a trend.

Brown told The Epoch Times that a multitude of studies from different institutions and countries were used in support of the 2023 Texas legislation banning medical procedures and hormones for children with gender dysphoria.

Kaufmann’s report stood out to Brown because it likened the falling transgender numbers to those of a fading fad or trend and connected the changes to mental health.

​“It’s kind of wild that this was a fad, and you have a bunch of people in the United States who permanently destroyed their health,” he said. “They permanently destroyed their physical bodies because it was cool.”

Alan Hopewell, a longtime neuropsychologist in Fort Worth, Texas, who saw gender-confused individuals as long ago as the 1970s, has argued that the sharp rise in gender dysphoria could be likened to a social contagion.

​Hopewell told The Epoch Times in several interviews that people with gender dysphoria may get caught up in online mass hysteria and become vulnerable to social media influences that affirm their beliefs.​

​He compared the surge in gender dysphoria, discussed obsessively in some online communities, to other mass hysteria events such as the Salem witch trials. A more modern example: There was mass hysteria about multiple personality disorder in the 1980s after TV movies such as “Sybil,” about a woman with 16 different personalities, became popular.

Hopewell said evidence suggests that other populations vulnerable to sexual identity disorder include autistic children.

​“They have neurological problems,” Hopewell said. “Then they get exploited ... or recruited.”

​The Cass Review, ​​led by British pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass in 2024, found that young people distressed about their gender often have “complex problems, including mental illness, neurodiversity, and a variety of social problems that may be contributing to their distress.”

In 2024, the UK National Health Service stopped offering puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria over a lack of evidence that there was any benefit.

​After the Cass Review, the agency announced a more holistic approach to gender dysphoria, which includes supporting mental health and those with conditions such as autism or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

​Medical groups in the United States have fallen behind the UK’s lead, with many continuing to support medical procedures and hormones for children who are confused about their gender.

​In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order stating that the federal government will not fund or promote the so-called transition of children who identify as a different gender.

“This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end,” the order reads.