University of California campuses are seeing a large boom in students identifying as transgender or nonbinary.
Throughout the UC system, the total number of undergraduates declaring themselves as transgender or nonbinary has shot up by 2,000 since 2019, according to a report citing recently published data.
The fact that the UC system condensed “nonbinary,” “genderqueer,” and “gender nonconforming” into a sole “nonbinary category” does not appear to justify the large jump, as the total percentage of transgender and nonbinary students increased so notably.
That percentage has tripled from .06% in 2019 to 1.9% in 2023, with most of this increase coming from the nonbinary category, the report noted.
UC Berkeley, in particular, saw the number of apparent transgender and gender nonconforming students rise from .2% to 1.8% in just four years.
Em Huang, the university’s director of LGBT advancement and equity, credits the rise to a systemic policy change that permits all students to use a name and gender identity of their choice, including on nearly all documents.