Mental health problems much more common among gender minority college students

College students from gender minorities — those who identify as transgender, gender nonconforming, genderqueer, and nonbinary — are much more likely to experience mental health problems than their cisgender peers. A new survey of students on 71 U.S. campuses found rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-injury, and suicidal thoughts were two to four times more common among the 1,200 respondents from gender minorities than among students whose gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth. “Public health efforts are urgently needed to meet the mental health needs of gender minority students,” said study co-author Sari Reisner of Harvard Medical School in a statement.