AI sez: A post on X (formerly Twitter) by researcher Eric Kaufmann on October 14, 2025, sparked the viral claim. Citing data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Kaufmann reported a recent and sharp decline in self-identified “trans and queer” youth between 2022 and 2025.
The unconfirmed data claims that the share of college students identifying as a gender other than male or female dropped from 6.8% in 2022 to 3.6% in 2025. This suggests that trans proponents may be feeling into the forest.
Critics point to the fact that this data has not been peer-reviewed or independently verified. It also relies on a single dataset that may not be representative of the entire population, and the nature of the specific survey questions has been questioned.
