Mountain or molehill? Every public high school has an average of 6 boys identifying as female  

Democrats frequently gaslight conservatives about the seriousness of transgender students in public schools.  

When Republicans try to pass laws protecting girls’ bathrooms or sports, liberals say such laws are unnecessary since transgender students are few and far between.  

But does that argument pass muster?  

Statistically speaking, no.  

Let’s look at the numbers.  

There are roughly 50 million public school students in the U.S., 15.5 million of which are high schoolers.  

While rates of gender nonconformity have exploded in recent years – especially among youth – recent surveys provide a fairly consistent idea of how many adolescents are identifying as something other than their biological sex. 

Somewhere Around 5% 

According to a 2022 report from the Pew Research Center, roughly 5% of adults aged 18-29 identified as transgender (2%) or nonbinary (3%).  

Rates dropped off steeply in older age groups, with just 0.3% of people 50 or older being gender non-conforming.  

In 2023, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found similar rates among adolescents as were found in young adults.  

It found 3.3% of high school students identifying as transgender with an additional 2.2% questioning their gender.  

Researchers also said about two-thirds of trans or questioning students were biological females. 

Other international studies have confirmed that female youth are more likely to be gender non-conforming than male youth. 

However, other findings indicate this difference may even out by adulthood.  

For example, a 2020 article in the academic journal, Transgender Health, said while male-to-female transitions were historically more common than female-to-male, they now occur at similar rates.  

And a survey associated with the Washington Post also produced interesting results: adult respondents were split evenly when it came to their biological sex (47% male and 53% female). 

However, there were far more “transgender woman” (22%) than “transgender men” (12)%, indicating biological women were more likely to identify as non-binary or non-conforming.  

Nevertheless, both biological sexes were equally represented. 

It’s Impacting Schools 

But what does all this have to do with public schools? 

Democrats say conservatives – and concerned parents – are making mountains out of molehills when they’re disturbed by biological boys being in girls’ bathrooms or playing girls’ sports.  

Take Jen Psaki.  

On Sunday, she told her fellow Democrats not to succumb to the “manufactured panic” about men in women’s sports.  

“If that were actually an issue at thousands of schools across the country, it would be worthy of a debate, but there are just incredibly few examples of transgender girls playing in youth sports. And when we see those examples, there isn’t evidence that these kids are a threat to safety and fairness,” Psaki claimed. “When I say few examples, I mean that if you were to account the examples of transgender girls playing youth sports in any single state, the number often rounds to zero.” 

Let’s do the math.  

Setting aside elementary and middle school students, America has 15.5 million high schoolers – 7.75 million of which are male.  

A conservative estimate is that 3% of high school students are transgender, but remember that female students are twice as likely to be gender non-conforming as males.  

Thus, rates of transgenderism are closer to 2% in male high schoolers and 4% in females.  

If the CDC’s research can be generalized, that means there are roughly 155,000 biological male high schoolers identifying as female.  

With 12,546 public school districts and 23,882 public high schools nationwide, that equals 12 trans “girls” per district or 6.5 per high school.  

And since about one-third of high schoolers play a sport (30% of girls and 39% of boys), protecting girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms clearly isn’t a molehill.  

It’s Not “Incredibly Rare” 

Granted, this doesn’t mean every high school in every district has biological boys identifying as girls or playing girls’ sports.  

Rates of transgenderism vary by region, and it is possible gender non-conforming students as a demographic gravitate away from sports in favor of other activities.  

But don’t be fooled when the media says the issue is “incredibly rare.”  

Even if it’s just a tiny percentage of male high schoolers, that’s still enough to have a biological male playing on a girls’ sports team in every public high school in America.  

The numbers don’t lie.