By Laurel White
Excluding data about gender identity from federal health surveys will harm the well-being of young people across the country, according to a recent editorial co-authored by a School of Education faculty member.
Mollie McQuillan, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, co-authored the editorial with Joseph Cimpian, professor of economics and education policy at New York University.
McQuillan and Cimpian have regularly used the Youth Risk Behavior Survey — a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that removed gender identity items following an executive order earlier this year — to evaluate the health and educational climate of adolescents. Using this survey, McQuillan and their research team have described why adults in schools provide a vital source of emotional support for trans youth and have identified LGBTQ+-related stress as an overlooked cause of increasing suicidality among adolescent girls.
McQuillan says they hope the editorial helps promote understanding of the importance of high-quality data to protect against additional harm on LGBTQ+ youth and to build on LGBTQ+ youths’ strengths.
“There cannot be evidence-based policymaking without systematically collecting data,” McQuillan says. “The availability of gender identity data combats informational erasure by enabling nuanced descriptions of adolescents’ experiences and needs rather than relying on assumptions and stereotypes.”
McQuillan says without such data governmental and public health organizations may struggle to assess needs, allocate resources effectively, and ultimately respond adequately to the multifaceted health, psychosocial, and educational challenges confronting the U.S. population.
Broadly, McQuillan’s research examines the intersection of educational policy, social relationships, and health of LGBTQ+ students and educators. Other recent publications from McQuillan examined workplace culture for trans adults and how training elementary school teachers in inclusive practices for LGBTQ+ students leads to lower disciplinary rates for all students.
In April, McQuillan was named as one of just five scholars nationwide to be funded by the prestigious William T. Grant Scholars Program. McQuillan is the fifth scholar from the University of Wisconsin–Madison to be selected for the competitive program in its 43-year history, and the second education scholar. McQuillan also received Emerging Scholar Awards from the American Educational Research Association in 2023 and 2025, as well as the organization’s 2023 Outstanding Policy Report award for a paper that examined the efficacy of a Wisconsin school district’s programs for supporting LGBTQ+ students.
The new editorial, “Masking the Health Impacts of Anti-LGBTQ+ Policies by Political Suppression of Data and Informational Erasure,” is available online.