A quarter of teens in California are now ‘gender nonconforming’, study finds

More than a quarter – 27% – of young people aged from 12 to 17 in California say they are viewed by others as ‘gender nonconforming’ at school, a new study found.

The term refers to people who don’t express their gender in the traditional binary way.

In total, 796,000 Californian teenagers are predicted to be ‘gender nonconforming’, the study found.

The researchers analysed responses from nearly 1,600 California households in the 2015-2016 California Health Interview Survey.

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It’s the first time the survey has included questions on gender identity.

The study found that gender nonconforming youth were more than twice as likely to have experienced psychological distress in the past year.

Lead author Bianca D M Wilson said, ‘The data show that more than one in four California youth express their gender in ways that go against the dominant stereotypes.

‘However, the heightened psychological distress we see among gender nonconforming youth indicates that we must continue to educate parents, schools and communities on the mental health needs of these young people and reduce known risk factors, such as bullying and bias.’