A quarter of transgender students attempted suicide in a year

**In 2023 the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey assessed transgender
identity for the first time**, producing the first nationally representative
data about transgender high school students in the United States.

3.3% of US high school students identified as transgender, and **2.2% as
questioning** whether they are transgender.

What the survey found

Roughly one in four, in a single year.

The two findings that sit together

Seventy-two per cent reporting persistent sadness or hopelessness is close
to universal. And one in four attempting suicide is not a minority within
a struggling group — it is what happened to a quarter of these students in
twelve months.

Alongside that: a higher prevalence of violence and unstable housing, and
a lower prevalence of school connectedness — the sense of being cared for
and belonging at school.

School connectedness is the variable schools can actually move, and it is the
one that is lowest.

Questioning students are not a milder case

The figures for questioning students track the transgender figures almost
exactly — 26.4% skipping school against 25.3%, 69% against 72%, the same
suicide attempt rate.

A student who is uncertain is experiencing very nearly the same thing as a
student who is certain, which matters for how schools think about who needs
support.

What the report concludes

**Intervention opportunities for schools to create safer and more supportive
environments for transgender and questioning students** can help address
these disparities.

*Source: Disparities in School Connectedness, Unstable Housing, Experiences of
Violence, Mental Health, and Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors Among Transgender
and Cisgender High School Students — Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United
States, 2023. MMWR Supplements, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.*