A massive study finds that trans-identifying teens, especially those who identify as ‘nonbinary,’ are more likely to bully others than be bu
By: Colin Wright
Published: Jul 25, 2025
A massive study finds that trans-identifying teens, especially those who identify as ‘nonbinary,’ are more likely to bully others than be bullied.
In recent years, few topics have generated more political, cultural, and medical controversy as transgender identity, especially as it relates to its growing popularity among young people. Much of this discussion has focused on how schools, healthcare providers, and families should respond when children identify as transgender. At the center of these conversations is the issue of bullying. The dominant narrative—repeated in the media, advocacy campaigns, and education policy—portrays transgender-identifying youth as passive victims being ostracized, excluded, and harassed simply for being their “authentic selves.” This framing has driven major policy changes, including rewriting school curricula around “gender identity,” enforcing compelled speech regarding pronouns, and expanding the use of so-called “gender-affirming care,” such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries.
This narrative is grounded in a psychological framework known as the minority stress model. According to this framework, the mental health struggles seen in trans-identifying youth aren’t due to underlying psychological issues, but are instead caused by social rejection, stigma, and lack of affirmation. This model has become widely accepted in academic and activist circles. It assumes that trans-identifying youth are mentally healthy by default, and that any emotional distress stems from how society treats or judges them. But the model is unscientific because it is both circular and unfalsifiable. Any signs of distress are taken as proof of victimization, while any suggestion that mental health problems or social difficulties might precede a transgender identity is dismissed as transphobic.
A study from Finland complicates this simplistic narrative. Published in Frontiers in Psychology, the paper—titled “Transgender Identity Is Associated With Bullying Involvement Among Finnish Adolescents”—found that adolescents who identify as transgender, especially those who consider themselves “nonbinary,” were more likely than their non-trans-identified peers not only to be bullied, but also to bully others. In fact, the link between transgender identity and perpetrating bullying was even stronger than the link to being bullied.
This adds a more complex picture to the public conversation. Yes, trans-identifying adolescents may face disproportionate bullying—but they are hardly just passive victims. The nonbinary group, in particular, stood out. Across both younger and older age groups, they reported bullying others more often than they were bullied themselves. This flips the common narrative.
To fully understand the significance of this study, it’s important to look at how the researchers defined their terms and designed the study.
Bullying was defined as “aggressive behavior in which a pupil or group of pupils intentionally harm victims in various ways, usually over a period of time,” and typically involves a perceived power imbalance. This could include physical violence, verbal abuse, social exclusion, rumor-spreading, sexual gestures, and could happen either in person or online.
Students were also asked about their “gender identity” using a two-step process. First, they reported their sex at the start of the survey. Later, they were asked whether they identified as a boy, a girl, both, neither, or if their identity varied. Based on these answers, students were grouped into three categories: cisgender (those whose gender identity matched their birth sex), opposite-sex identifying (such as a male identifying as a girl), and nonbinary (those who identified as both, neither, or said their identity fluctuated). The researchers carefully separated these two trans-identified subgroups—opposite-sex identifying and nonbinary—which is an important detail often overlooked in other studies that combine all these identities into one group.
The study also noted that being involved in bullying—whether as a victim, a perpetrator, or both—is linked to serious risks, including depression, suicidal thoughts, substance use, skipping school, and lower academic performance.
The study surveyed an enormous sample of more than 130,000 Finnish students, split into two age groups: younger adolescents in comprehensive school (typically ages 14–15) and older adolescents in upper secondary school (typically ages 16–17). Students were asked how often they had been bullied or had bullied others. Frequent involvement was defined as about once a week or more. To ensure reliable results, the study also accounted for other factors that could influence bullying behavior, including depression, anxiety, alcohol use, family background, parents’ education level, and whether the student reported being both a bully and a victim.
To ensure the results were reliable, the researchers excluded survey responses that appeared dishonest or exaggerated—for example, students who gave contradictory answers or reported extreme values in unrelated questions. Prior research has shown that adolescents sometimes give mischievous answers on surveys, and that trans-identifying youth are disproportionately represented in this group. This tendency may contribute to inflated reports of psychological distress and social dysfunction in previous studies.
What the researchers found challenges the basic assumptions of the minority stress model. Yes, transgender-identifying youth did report being bullied more often than their non-trans-identified peers—but they also reported bullying others at even higher rates. In fact, the odds of being a perpetrator were greater than the odds of being a victim. Among younger adolescents, those who identified as the opposite sex were nearly four times more likely to bully others compared to their “cisgender” peers, while “nonbinary” youth were more than 2.5 times as likely. Among older adolescents, those who identified as nonbinary again stood out, with approximately four times the odds of bullying others.
Even more striking was the overrepresentation of trans-identified youth—especially the “nonbinary” youth—among “bully-victims,” those who both bully others and are bullied themselves. Although bullying tends to decrease with age, the link between nonbinary identity and bullying behavior became even stronger among older students. In other words, while most adolescents outgrow bullying, youth who identified as nonbinary were more likely to remain caught in these harmful social dynamics.
The authors offer several possible explanations. One is that trans-identifying youth often express themselves in ways that defy gender norms, which may draw attention or provoke reactions from peers. Prior research, for example, has found that gender-nonconforming boys are more likely to be targeted. Another explanation comes from the “gender minority stress and resilience” (GMSR) model, which suggests that persistent stigma causes transgender youth to experience chronic psychological stress and adopt a “hostile attribution bias,” which is when neutral or ambiguous behavior from others is interpreted as bullying.
While this framework is typically used to absolve individuals of any responsibility and place all blame on society, the current findings point to a more complex reality: that adolescents experiencing high internal stress, poor mental health, and limited social skills may be both more likely to feel victimized and more likely to lash out aggressively toward others.
This interpretation aligns with a growing body of research showing that psychological distress typically precedes adopting a transgender identity, rather than being caused by a lack of affirmation. From this perspective, identifying as transgender—particularly as nonbinary—may serve both as a coping strategy and a way to gain social influence. It can also, in my view, offer a kind of moral protection that shields the adolescent from criticism while granting them social status. These are commonly referred to in popular culture as “crybullies.”
The authors of the study stop short of making this argument directly, but they do emphasize a key point: transgender youth “are not necessarily only victims but also perpetrators of bullying.” This stands in stark contrast to the dominant narrative and deserves serious attention from educators, clinicians, and policymakers. School interventions that treat transgender-identifying students as inherently fragile and oppressed may misidentify the sources of behavioral problems and overlook the fact that some of these youth are also contributing to harm in their peer groups.
The study has several important strengths. Its large, nationally representative sample allows for greater generalizability than most prior research. The use of a “two-step method” to separate opposite-sex identifying students from those who identify as nonbinary allows for a more precise understanding of which groups are associated with which behaviors.
But there are also limitations. Because it is a cross-sectional study, it cannot establish cause and effect. It doesn’t differentiate between types of bullying—such as physical, verbal, or online—and doesn’t indicate whether respondents were openly living in their identified gender roles. And as with any self-reported data, the results depend on how honestly and accurately students answered the questions.
Still, despite these caveats, the study makes a valuable contribution to a debate often dominated by ideology over evidence. In today’s climate, where the concept of “gender identity” is frequently treated as beyond criticism, this research offers a data-driven, scientifically rigorous look at a more complicated reality. It doesn’t deny that trans-identifying youth may experience bullying—but it does challenge the idea that they are simply passive victims. Vulnerability and aggression are not mutually exclusive.
If we truly want to protect all children—regardless of how they identity—we need to move beyond slogans and engage with what the data actually reveal. This study does just that. It forces us to ask who is actually vulnerable, who may be causing harm, what role ideology plays in shaping the narratives many often accept without question.
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Background. During adolescence, bullying often has a sexual content. Involvement in bullying as a bully, victim or both has been associated
Abstract
Background: During adolescence, bullying often has a sexual content. Involvement in bullying as a bully, victim or both has been associated with a range of negative health outcomes. Transgender youth appear to face elevated rates of bullying in comparison to their mainstream peers. However, the involvement of transgender youth as perpetrators of bullying remains unclear in the recent literature.
Objective: The aim of this study was to compare involvement in bullying between transgender and mainstream youth and among middle and late adolescents in a general population sample.
Methods: Our study included 139,829 students in total, divided between a comprehensive school and an upper secondary education sample. Associations between gender identity and involvement in bullying were first studied using cross-tabulations with chi-square statistics. Logistic regression was used to study multivariate associations. Gender identity was used as the independent variable, with cisgender as the reference category. Subjection to and perpetration of bullying were entered each in turn as the dependent variable. Demographic factors, family characteristics, internalizing symptoms, externalizing behaviors, and involvement in bullying in the other role were added as confounding factors. Odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) are given. The limit for statistical significance was set at p < 0.001.
Results: Both experiences of being bullied and perpetrating bullying were more commonly reported by transgender youth than by cisgender youth. Among transgender youth, all involvement in bullying was more commonly reported by non-binary youth than those identifying with the opposite sex. Logistic regression revealed that non-binary identity was most strongly associated with involvement in bullying, followed by opposite sex identity and cisgender identity. Transgender identities were also more strongly associated with perpetration of bullying than subjection to bullying.
Conclusion: Transgender identity, especially non-binary identity, is associated with both being bullied and perpetrating bullying even when a range of variables including internal stress and involvement in bullying in the opposite role are taken into account. This suggests that bullying during adolescence may serve as a mechanism of maintaining heteronormativity.
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No shit. Being able to self-declare an intersectional victimhood identity – based on imaginary mind-body dualism metaphysics – to demand accommodations and compliance from others at the threat of being called a bigot or hateful is a magnet for sociopaths and narcissists.
I want to be completely clear on something: I despise Socialism and Communism. Lenin himself said, "The goal of socialism is communism," and Communism was responsible for 100 million deaths in the 20th century alone. Shoe0nHead is pretty much a socialist.
But dammit, she's my favorite socialist, and I love her. 💛😂
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017 You h...
A cry-bully is someone who engages in intimidation, harassment, or other abusive behavior while claiming to be a victim.
It can be difficult to not become emotionally reactionary when in this scenario. Be responsible for your thoughts, words, actions, and intentions. Let them be responsible for theirs.
For any followers/trolls who want to report this blog itself as harmful, please ask yourself if anyone has thought about the multiple, anonymous victims who were affected by the hosts’ actions. Their mental well-being matters, too.
Evangelical activists' insistence that equality amounts to discrimination is a narcissistic approach to human rights, argues Stephen Evans. Read More »
By: Stephen Evans
Published: Dec 17, 2021
The UK is one of the 'most intolerant' countries in Europe towards Christians. That's the extraordinary claim of a report published this week by Observatory of Intolerance Against Christians in Europe (OIACE).
The report identifies the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden as the top five countries driving what it describes as a "rising phenomenon" against Christians.
The scientist Carl Sagan famously said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". This report offers little.
A few examples of the supposed "discrimination" and "intolerance" faced by UK Christians illustrate just how scant the evidence is.
One of the more bizarre examples provided by the report is schools being "pressured to provide atheist content".
What's being referred to here is one instance of a Church of England controlled multi-academy trust agreeing to provide a meaningful alternative for pupils withdrawn from Christian collective worship after two parents launched a legal challenge. The parents simply wanted their local (non-faith) school to provide a more inclusive environment for their children.
The authors are looking through the wrong end of the telescope here. Those on the receiving end of intolerance and discrimination when it comes to state education are the pupils locked out of local faith schools due to discriminatory admissions policies – and those compelled to take part in Christian rituals by a law that forces all schools to hold daily acts of Christian worship.
But this report never lets the reality get in the way of its victim narrative.
The report's authors go on to cite 'buffer zones' as further evidence of victimisation of Christians. These are the zones introduced around abortion clinics by a handful of local authorities where women were facing harassment and intimidation when accessing healthcare.
It takes a very myopic mindset to refuse to recognise that the right to oppose abortion shouldn't interfere with the fundamental right for women to make individual reproductive choices and access sexual health services.
The report goes on to claim the requirement on schools to provide LGBT inclusive relationships and sex education; the refusal to allow religion-run adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex parents; and even the inclusion of places of worship in measures to curb the spread of coronavirus indicate a "decline in religious freedom".
The point entirely and intentionally missed by this report's authors is that human rights are the basic rights and freedoms that belong to everyone, not just Christians. In pluralistic societies, competing rights sometimes clash – and a balance needs to be struck. When the practicing of your religion encroaches on the rights and freedoms of others, a restriction on your right may be reasonable. The belief that not always entirely getting your own way amounts to discrimination is a highly narcissistic and flawed approach to human rights.
The appalling treatment of Christians and other religious and nonreligious minorities in countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Iran, North Korea, China, and Nigeria is deserving of everyone's attention. This year's #RedWednesday campaign did a fine job of highlighting the persecution faced by millions of Christians, not least the girls and women living under the constant threat of abduction, sexual violence and forced conversion.
But claiming that the human rights of Christians are "under pressure" in a country where, in almost all walks of life, Christianity is uniquely privileged, is simply absurd.
Nevertheless, hardline Christian advocacy groups continue to push a false narrative of Christians being persecuted here. So loud became their calls that in 2016, the Equality and Human Rights Commission carried out a comprehensive review of equality and human rights law relating to religion or belief.
The Commission's findings gave lie to the claim that Christians are being unfairly treated. Their report said the law strikes the right balance between protecting religious freedom and upholding the right to non-discrimination.
The labelling of National Secular Society backed legislative attempt to end the automatic right of 26 Church of England bishops to seats in the House of Lords as an 'incident' of anti-Christian intolerance is further evidence of the crybully tactics deployed by unscrupulous Christian campaigners.
But the cries of persecution will undoubtably grow louder as those wanting to impose their beliefs on others see their privileges challenged.
Secularism isn't intolerance of Christian beliefs. It's the view that those beliefs shouldn't be elevated or privileged above others.
All around the world well-funded Christian activists are lobbying for laws to allow them to discriminate and impose their beliefs on people who don't share them – all under the guise of 'religious freedom'.
Human rights advocates everywhere need to be wise to these bad actors claiming victimhood to gain special privileges to trample on the rights of others.
