For a while, it felt like every college classroom came with pronoun check-ins and name tags that doubled as identity statements. “They/them” went mainstream fast. Now, new data shows fewer students are using the nonbinary label, suggesting that the conversation around gender might be changing again.
A new report from political scientist Eric Kaufmann suggests that fewer Gen Z students are identifying outside the male-female binary. His analysis, published through the Center for Heterodox Social Science, draws on major campus surveys from the Higher Education Research Institute, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and schools like Phillips Academy Andover and Brown University.
Across nearly every data set, the same pattern appears. At Brown, 2.6% of students identified as nonbinary in 2025—half the percentage recorded in 2022 and 2023. At Andover, that number dropped from 7.4% to 3% in just two years. In FIRE’s national survey of more than 50,000 undergrads, only 3.6% said they identified as a gender other than male or female, compared to 6.8% in 2023.
Kids Stopped Identifying as Nonbinary
The reasons aren’t entirely clear. Kaufmann suggests the decline may reflect shifting cultural pressures, political polarization, or the way social identity categories spread and recede over time. “There’s been a slowdown in the adoption of new gender identities among young people,” he wrote in the report. “It may indicate a move toward stabilization after a period of rapid expansion.”
Experts say it’s too soon to read the drop as a cultural reversal. Data from UCLA’s Williams Institute estimates 2.8 million Americans identify as transgender, with more than 700,000 under 18. The change seems to lie in language, not in the number of people living outside traditional gender lines.
Researchers point out that identity terms shift with the culture around them. As gender becomes a political flashpoint, some students may avoid labels that feel risky to claim out loud. “We’re seeing identity formation collide with a culture war,” Kaufmann said.
The numbers have changed, but the idea of gender fluidity hasn’t gone anywhere. On many campuses, students who once used the nonbinary label say they’re now leaning toward more personal terms, or avoiding fixed categories altogether.
Some describe it as language catching up to how they’ve always felt. Others say it’s about taking gender out of the spotlight and focusing on identity in broader ways. Either way, the conversation is still moving, even if the numbers suggest a pause.
Maybe the real story isn’t decline, but recalibration. After years of expanding definitions, some Gen Zers seem ready to move past identity politics and focus on simply being themselves.
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