Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Part I

Changing Fashion about Changing Gender: The Rapid Decline of So-Called Transgender Identity Among Young Americans

Eric Kaufmann is himself a man of the left. He is a professor of politics at the University of Buckingham in England. He is also involved in a new report coming from the Centre for Heterodox Social Science, published as a summary in UnHerd, which is a place you find some very interesting scientific reports. The title of the report is “The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans”. And, as Eric Kaufmann tells us, the report shows that since 2023, “Both trans and queer identification have dropped sharply within generation Z.”

So let’s just look at the numbers, or at least let’s look at the pattern first of all. Then we’ll talk about what it means. The pattern is, and this is substantiated by surveys from groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. That’s FIRE. Very well-known group. It conducts a very large survey of undergraduates in the United States. The most recent poll involves 60,000 students. So you’re talking about a very, very large sample. 60,000, that’s in the year 2025. So this year, 60,000 undergraduates. Professor Kaufmann goes on to say, “My analysis of the raw data shows that in that year, just 3.6% of respondents identified as gender other than male or female. By comparison,” he says, “The figure was 5.2% in 2024, 6.8% in both 2022 and 2023.”

Summary, “In other words, the share of trans-identified students has effectively halved in just two years.” Okay. So you look at the number of young people, and this is undergraduates, so just say 18 to 22, generation Z, as they are known. When they identify their gender identity, their sexual identity, the drop in those identifying as trans is remarkable. It’s about a 50% drop in just a matter of a few years. And then professor Kaufmann looking at it says, the trend is particularly evident in “Elite institutions.” He says this, “Andover Phillips Academy, more commonly known as Phillips Andover Academy in suburban Boston, surveys over three quarters of its students annually.” Now that’s pretty amazing. You’re talking here about three quarters of the students being involved in the survey.

“In 2023, 9.2% identified as neither male nor female.” Little irony here, the school was started as an elite boys school back when people knew who boys were. But nonetheless, this particular school and its student body, we’re told that the number has crashed to just 3%. So we’re not talking about halved here. 9.2% in 2023, 3% in 2025. All right. By the way, Phillips Andover Academy or Phillips Academy at Andover founded in 1778, one of the most prestigious and elite of the historic Boys schools is now co-ed. It was exclusively a school for the boys of the American elite for most of its history.

And how elite? Well, just to give you two interesting alumni, former President George H.W. Bush and former President George W. Bush. Similar schools, educated the Roosevelts and so many others. The elite of the elite. And they’re quite competitive, by the way, amongst themselves. So this is, even now, it’s co-ed, it’s very progressive, very liberal. Started in conservative Calvinist roots. Basically an offshoot of one expression of Puritanism. Let’s just say they got over that a long time ago. But the interesting thing is that among these elite teenagers, so these are younger than college students, you’re talking about high school students, the number has dropped precipitously. The percentage has dropped from 9.2% in just two years to only about 3%.

All right. So those are the numbers. And so we’re looking at a very wide, just incredibly broad, comprehensive survey from FIRE. And we’re looking at one this far narrower. We’re looking at Phillip Andover. Professor Kaufmann, again, who identifies as a man of the left, he says, this is a big trend that we ought to notice and it tells us something about what’s going on in the trajectory of the culture. He gives us some other interesting comments in the research. “More surveys ask about sexual orientation than gender identity. And while there is a broader spread of data points, the basic pattern looks similar. Rising nonconformity from 2010 to 2023 with a near 10 point return to the norm in the ensuing two years in most data sets.”

Okay. So something’s going on in the culture. One of the things we have talked about over the course of the last several years is the fact that much of this deviation from sexual norms and gender norms is driven by peer pressure. It is, for one thing, evidently a contagion. A specific kind of contagion. I don’t mean physical as in germs. This is what we refer to as a social contagion. It is an idea. It is a conception. It is an identity that all of a sudden becomes contagious. Now, it’s not equal male and female. So when you’re looking at social contagions and in particular dealing with gender and sexuality, there is a much higher percentage of adolescent girls and young women who indicate this kind of social contagion than of boys and young men.

And the biggest way to see it is that when you have a social contagion like this, you have a large number of girls who know each other in a peer group, who tend to all of a sudden to show up with some very similar patterns of deviance from the norm. I’ll just put it that way. And I think this has to do with some fundamental differences between male and female. And by that, I mean male, M-A-L-E, female, F-E-M-A-L-E. We know the categories here. And so even as we’re talking about deviations from those categories as claimed, it’s just hugely significant to know that there has been a cutting in half or even almost in two-thirds in just a couple of years. Something’s going on in the culture.

Now, is it a return to moral sanity? Well, that’s an interesting question to ask. And I think we have to hope that it is something like that, at least in part. I think when we look at the larger culture and we look at, for instance, the left pushing LGBTQ really, really hard, it turns out, as is made explicit in this article, that younger students “Are less BTQ than older students in their colleges.” And Kaufman says, “That is a sign that fashions are changing.” Okay. Wow. Wow. He dropped a bomb there. Did you hear it? The word fashion. Fashions are changing. So what is that admitting? What’s the huge admission in that?

And I’m not just putting it on this author. I think he’s using this language because it’s out there in the culture. Those who use it are really admitting that a lot of this that is claimed to be based upon immutable identity and all the rest, clearly it is something susceptible to social contagion. Clearly it is, at least in some cases, a fashion. It is popular. You’re unpopular. You want to be popular in a peer group. Well, adopt an LGBTQ identity. And then all of a sudden, you’re a protected class. And in one sense, you’re famous. But fashions change. And that’s particularly true. Just think of fashion in terms of the most classic expression, meaning how we dress. Dress patterns change. You can look at a sitcom from the 1990s, and no man wears a baggy suit like that anymore. That’s what everybody was wearing in 1992. Virtually, no one’s wearing it now.

Similarly, hairstyles. For women, dresses and other things. Fashion is fashion. And by definition, fashion is expressive of a contemporary moment. It doesn’t last. And when we are now talking about LGBTQ, particularly BTQ, isn’t it interesting that even some people on the Left say at least a part of this, a major function of this, one big driver of this is fashion. And that’s an incredible statement. And also, it just underlines the fact that when you do talk about a statistical deviation, like a number dropping from over 9% to less than 5%, less than even 4% in some of this, then you really are talking about something that can’t be explained by, let’s just say, a normal let’s speak of biology. You talk about a normal distribution by biological characteristic that isn’t going to change among human beings year by year.

There may be some long-term trends and birth rates and all the rest, but let’s just say, that can’t explain this. That underlines the word fashion here. Something is going on here that is more explained by something like fashion. Trying on BTQ identity. Fewer now trying it on. It’s not as cool as it used to be. That turns out to be really, really interesting. In terms of the scientific studies, you’d say that sounds truly salient. 

By the way, it’s not just Phillips Academy at Andover, it’s also Brown University, one of the Ivy League institutions and one of the most liberal of the Ivy League campuses. And we’re told in this study that at Brown University, 5% of students identified as non-binary in 2022 and 2023. Fast forward to 2025, the share had dropped to “2.6%.” So, massive reduction.

Now, is this a permanent trend? Well, you can’t count on it. If it’s a fashion, then it could come in fashion and then go out of fashion. This is where Christians have to come back and say, “This is, in one sense, reassurance of the fact that this isn’t ontological, that this kind of gender confusion, this kind of so-called non-binary gender identity, or the whole transgender phenomenon, that’s increasingly, it’s being now admitted, not so much something that could be reduced to biology at all.” If you can use the word fashion and you can talk of it in terms of popularity and you can look at a pattern like social contagion, then you really blow the bottom out of your own boat claiming that something fundamentally biological is going on here.

Kaufmann, by the way, mentions the anti-woke, “Vibe shift.” He marks 2022 as the transitional year. And yet, here’s something else of interest. Conservatives should pay attention to this. Christians should certainly pay attention to this. It turns out that the same surveys polling the same young people, high schoolers such as at the elite academy, Phillips Academy at Andover, college students such as Brown, widespread young adults in terms of the FIRE study, it turns out they’re not sounding anti-woke on many other issues. They’re sounding particularly anti-woke on this one. Okay. Now I think I have a pretty good explanation for that as a theologian. At least I’m going to offer you a theological theory. And that is a theory based in theology, based on a biblical anthropology, based upon a biblical understanding of humanity.

My guess is that especially if you’re a high school teenager or you’re a college-age young adult, figuring out if you’re male or female is a pretty high priority. And wondering if this is rooted in biology or something else, that’s a pretty high priority. So I’m not surprised that that becomes a greater priority than dealing with some other issues, such as, “Am I even a Democrat or a Republican?” Figuring out if you’re a boy or a girl would seem to have priority over that. Okay. 

Before I leave this particular report, there’s another fascinating category in it. The fact that, in this report by Eric Kaufmann, the word fashion shows up in this. That’s just hugely significant. It’s also significant that this trend is expressed as “Post progressive.” So that means things were moving in a direction defined as progressive. And now a reaction to that, or on the other side of that, post progressive. Now, what does progressive mean here? Does it just mean making progress? Well, it’s the claim of the Left. So when you see the word progressive used in this kind of situation, a moral change or political posture, that means driven by an ideology of the Left. It is described as progressive because the Left, the secular Left in particular’s view of history is that it is an unfolding. This is going back all the way back to the German philosopher Hegel, his unfolding of history.

You have to realize that so many of the people on the Left, they genuinely believe that, this is just how their worldview is set, they genuinely believe that history unfolds in an ever ceasing leftist direction over time. And that’s one of the reasons why they say, look at the 20th century. Divorce laws, they came. And then birth control laws came. And then legalized abortion came. And then the gay rights movement came. And then same-sex marriage came. It’s just a line, a trajectory. And one of the things that befuddles them at the present, and frankly it’s more than that, and infuriate so many people on the Left, is that at least right now, something is happening that indicates that same arc is at least not progressing at the same velocity.

So as a conservative, I want to say I am not at all certain that the trajectory has changed. I do believe that the momentum has changed. And that presents us with an opportunity. And anytime the truth shows up in increased clarity, Christians say that’s a good thing. All right. I guarantee you that this will also prompt responses coming from the Left, even though this comes from the left itself. It not an argument that will be popular among many on the Left, certainly in the LGBTQ advocacy community and the activists. So it’s going to be interesting to see what kind of response comes. We will talk about that when it comes.

Part II

Richard Dawkins Goes After Transgenderism: Renown New Atheist Scientist Argues Against Gender Theory and trans Ideology

You also have Richard Dawkins come out in this chapter against those who used to be called postmodernists or the social constructivists.

He comes out saying, “You know there’s some people who just say that truth doesn’t exist, that it’s all socially constructed.” And he says, “The cell isn’t socially constructed. The cell is a thing. The thing is a biological thing. And it operates as the cell. It is what it is. That is the most profound unit.” Again, he wrote the book The Selfish Gene. But then he presses on and he goes at the transgender claim. I mean, he goes at it hard. He says it’s absolutely ridiculous. He makes a fascinating argument. He says, “There is no non-binary in the entire catalog of nature.” He says, “You can’t find non-binary anywhere.” He says, “There’s no third thing between male and female.”

Now, there may be some individual mutations in terms of genetic patterns. But surviving, and again, he’s only concerned about reproduction. He’s only concerned about evolution. He says, “Here’s the deal. You have a sperm and an egg. Nothing in between. Let’s just say a sperm is not gender non-binary. It’s male. An egg is not gender non-binary. It’s female. And you either have a sperm or an egg. You don’t have something in the middle, because there isn’t anything in the middle.” So as he’s saying, reproductive cells are, by definition, profoundly binary. There is absolutely zero non-binary. He cites some of the new gender theorists about a sexual continuum, and he says, “There isn’t any such thing. The chance of any such thing existing is,” as he writes, “precisely zero. Furthermore,” he says, “the genetic structure is absolutely fixed.”

He writes this. “In humans, one look at a newborn baby is nearly always enough to clench it.” But then he says this. “Even if it occasionally isn’t, the genetic structure remains unshaken.” So as I’ve said, he goes at this really hard. He goes at everything hard. When he argues against us, he argues with very, very strong language. In this case, he’s arguing against transgender identity. Remember, his worldview is evolution period that requires reproduction. That means male and female. Certainly for mammals. And again, he says it’s reproductive cells. And the reproductive cells are not in between. They’re one or the other.

And thus he says here, “When a baby’s born, you can generally take one look and say that’s what that is. If not, it’s a deviation from the norm, and it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s going to be carrying either a sperm and egg.” So that’s the bottom line. And then he talks about social construction. Again, the postmodernist thing. And he says that’s what people are doing. They’ve made gender into something. It’s not based in reality. It’s not based in biology. As we say theologically, it’s not based in ontology. He says this, “Maybe they’ve sincerely bought into the superstition that uttering the magic incantation I’m a woman,” he means as a man saying I’m a woman, “turns you into one like a pumpkin turning into Cinderella’s coach.”

He also goes at fellow scientists, the ones who may be working in universities right now, and he says they’re kowtowing to what he describes as the kids, meaning the students, because they want to curry favor with them. But Richard Dawkins is coming back and saying, “If so, then you’re giving up science. You just want to placate the kids. You’re not really doing science anymore.”

Part III

The Movement Against DEI is Growing—And Some Surprising Voices Are Speaking Out

He actually refers to woke, interestingly, in ways I think a lot of conservative Christians are going to say, “Richard, you’re absolutely right.” He talks about a theology of woke. He says that it has taken on a theological tone among those on the Left. To his credit, Richard Dawkins, rather bravely in this case, walks in to the controversy and says, “Men ought not to be in women’s changing rooms, and biological males don’t belong in female spaces.”

He also says this. “So powerful has the postmodern counterfactualism become that newspapers refer to her,” I’ll just say male organ, “as a matter of unremarked routine.” As he clearly understands, that’s insanity. He goes on and says this, “I draw the line at the belligerent slogan ‘trans women are women,’ because it is scientifically false.” Dawkins said, “When taken literally, it can infringe the rights of other people, especially,” hold for it, “women.” Now, Richard Dawkins is advanced in years. He is retired and he has emeritus status. He’s not threatened by the kids, as he says, or the leftist establishment, but others are. And he points out that many in the academy are just caving.

“Many people who know better,” he says, “are simply caving.” And he said that the trans activist community, he told The Telegraph in London, that it’s become, “Astonishingly vicious, going after people’s jobs and all the rest.” And he said, “Publishers are being bullied, politicians are being bullied, academics are being bullied.” It’s also, I think, very interesting to know that what Richard Dawkins is doing here is he’s trying to sound an alarm in two places. He’s trying to sound an alarm in the scientific community. “They’re coming for us. They’re coming for the very idea of science,” he says. “They’re even coming for evolution. You can’t fit the trans stuff into evolution. You can’t fit the trans stuff, by the way, into human reproduction. You can’t fit it into the need for a male cell and a female cell in reproduction.”

And as Dawkins says, “There is nothing in between.” People can say they’re non-binary and they have a gender identity somewhere between male and female. And Dawkins says, “Well, you know what? Your reproductive cells don’t.” So speaking of common cause, and even common perception, common understanding, it’s really interesting that Lawrence Krauss, the scientist who’s the editor of this book, and then Richard Dawkins, the most famous author in the book, most famous scientist, it’s really interesting that both of them come out as declared enemies of DEI. A DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, so big in the Left, so prevalent on college campuses.

And by the way, even as the Trump administration has been pushing back on this, also conservative donors and others, the fact is that a lot of it’s just being rebranded. Relabeled. They’re dropping D and E and I, and they’re calling it something else, human harmony or something. Whatever they want to call it. They’re just rebranding it. But it is really interesting in terms of common cause that these two scientists and then others in the book as well, they’re pressing back. After all, they’re talking about the war on science. And the war on science is, well, I think Richard Dawkins would say there are times in which he would make complaints against conservatives, in particular Christian conservatives.

Obviously, we disagree on fundamental issues, profoundly on evolution and the origin of the entire cosmos and the origin of human beings. But you know what? It is interesting that the five alarm fire right now, when it comes to scientists like Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss, it’s not any kind of threat from the right. It is the threat from the DEI, LGBTQ, ESG, left. One final word on this. I just find it very interesting, the clarity that Richard Dawkins brings to this argument when he says, “When it comes to reproductive cells, there is nothing between male and female. Nothing as a third thing between a sperm and an egg. It’s one or the other every single time.” Of course, we as Christians would say, that’s creation order, that’s reality as God made it. Well, it’s just reality as it is.