CDC: Nearly 2 percent of high school students identify as transgender — and more than one-third of them attempt suicide
Nearly 2 percent of high school students in the United States identify as transgender, according to data published Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Other data show:
- 27 percent feel unsafe at school or traveling to or from campus.
- 35 percent are bullied at school.
- 35 percent attempt suicide.
Amit Paley, chief executive and executive director of the Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth, called the report’s findings “groundbreaking.”
“This is the first time we’ve had a federal government report of this magnitude showing that transgender youth exist in this country and in larger numbers than researchers had previously estimated,” he said in an interview. The report, he said, shows “the very real health risks” transgender youth face in school.
Paley said the Trump administration has moved to “erase the identity of transgender youth.” The administration has rolled back or frozen Obama-era anti-discrimination rules aimed at protecting the LGBTQ community in health, education and other areas.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Trump’s broad restrictions on transgender people serving in the military to go into effect while the policy is fought in lower courts. In 2017, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s first major policy act was to support Trump’s decision to rescind the guidance protecting the right of transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice.
The data published by the CDC comes from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 10 states and nine large urban school districts. The survey is conducted biennially among a representative sample of U.S. high school students in the ninth through 12th grades. The findings were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, an epidemiological digest with public health information and recommendations sent to the CONTINUE READING: CDC: Nearly 2 percent of high school students identify as transgender — and more than one-third of them attempt suicide - The Washington Post