Methodological issues in Kaufmann’s analysis of FIRE gender identity data

Looking closely at a surprising claim Eric Kaufmann’s recent article on UnHerd –covered by the New York Post , RealClearPolitics , and elsewhere–claims that gender non-conforming identification among U.S. college students “has effectively halved” from 6.8% in 2022–2023 to 3.6% in 2025. This conclusion, based on analysis of survey data collected for FIRE ’s College Free Speech Rankings , suffers…