Beyond binary: College students more often choosing other than ‘she’ and ‘he’ pronouns

WHEN STUDENTS TODAY fill out their college applications, they are not just identifying as “she” or “he.” More than 3 percent of incoming college students use a different set of pronouns. That’s according to my analysis of the more than 1.2 million applications submitted for the 2022-23 school year through the Common App, an online application platform used by more than 900 colleges.

While 3 percent may not seem like a lot, it represents nearly 37,000 students. It is also indicative of a growing number of young people who identify outside of a gender binary — that is, they do not identify as female or male. For example, the percentage of college students who indicated that they are nonbinary on one national survey has more than tripled from 1.4 percent in 2016 to 5.1 percent in 2022.