Gender-Expansive Youth Report

This report details the alarming challenges and barriers facing transgender and gender-expansive youth around the country -- and their perseverance in the face of discrimination and harassment.

HRC and researchers at the University of Connecticut found that:

• Less than a quarter of transgender and gender expansive youth feel like they can definitely be themselves at home.
• Seventy-two percent of transgender and gender expansive youth report hearing their families make negative comments about LGBTQ people.
• Sixty-nine percent of transgender and gender expansive youth have received unwanted sexual comments, jokes and gestures.
• Transgender and gender expansive youth are roughly twice as likely to be sexually assaulted or raped because of their actual or perceived identities than their cisgender LGBTQ peers.
• Less than a quarter of transgender and gender expansive youth can definitely be themselves at school.
• Only 16 percent of transgender and gender expansive youth always feel safe at school.
• Forty-two percent of transgender and gender expansive youth have received physical threats due to their LGBTQ identity.
• Fifty-one percent of transgender and gender expansive youth never use restrooms at school that align with their gender identity.

Excerpted From Downloadable File:

In 2017, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation partnered with researchers at the University of Connecticut to conduct a groundbreaking survey of more than 12,000 LGBTQ youth and capture their experiences in their families, schools, social circles and communities.

More than 5,600 gender-expansive youth – including those who are transgender and non-binary – responded to the survey. This resource presents data collected from these youth, shedding light on the challenges and triumphs encountered through their journeys of self-expression and identification.

All of the data in this report comes from respondents who articulated that their gender identities differ from the expectations and identities consistent with their sex assigned at birth. Throughout the report, the experiences of these respondents are sometimes broken down between youth reporting binary gender identities and those reporting non-binary or fluid gender identities. The label “binary” refers to respondents who are exclusively either a boy or a girl. The label “non-binary” refers to respondents who are not exclusively a boy or a girl, or are neither.

Throughout this report, we include data breakdowns by youth who report binary and non-binary identities not to create false dichotomies and invite direct comparison – no experience should be viewed as better or worse than any other – but rather to show the diversity of experiences among gender-expansive young people...



Donate To Support TSSN!

• Visit TSSN's Support For Parents Of Transgender Children section to post your concerns/questions regarding support of trans children & youth.
• Visit www.hrc.org/explore/topic/ transgender-children-youth to find resources that transgender children, families and other youth-serving professionals need to support one another in their journeys.