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Most fanfic writers are female, specifically teenagers and young women.
This is the most common conceptualization regarding fanfic writers in general. Usually this comes down to thinking that fanfic is the domain of the 13-year-old Yaoi Fangirl, or Het is Ew. Those who do actually know something about today's realm of fanfic know differently, and are often less than happy with the insinuation that fanfic is badly written and childish as a whole.
But let's look at where those assumptions come from, shall we?
Certainly most young writers get their start taking ideas from popular culture and going from there, and using your favourite characters in your own story isn't an alien concept to most young teenagers. A lot of young people writing gay or lesbian themes and relationships - something that is rarely a serious focus in the mainstream media they watch and read - or fantasizing about gay, lesbian or just Het romantic imagery in general, will start with characters and ideas they are familiar with, often with characters that engender such imagery. Some writers will deliberately start with fanfic to attract readers and feedback before starting with original characters. For young teenagers, this is certainly the place to start writing about their Shipping fantasies - gay or Het - and to get into writing generally, particularly for those with specific stories or even fetishes they want to explore.
All over the internet there's been a build-up in fanfic written by young teenagers over the years. As they grow older, they may move onto original works or stop writing out their fantasies and drop it all together, but a lot of writers do stay on and refine their stories, becoming the OldGuard. It surprises many people how adapting to someone else's canon and learning not only to write well, but how to fit their own literature into the continuity of a series can be very useful and unique skills that few other forms of writing can teach. The analysis and appreciation of the source material that is necessary to write good fanfiction is an amazing asset for any aspiring writer.
However, as for the on-going interest in fanfiction - and the associated prevalence of this trope - on the one hand, it's certainly no secret that writings with gay characters or gay or LGBT thematic imagery are significantly marginalized in main stream literature and other media, particularly romance. Fanfic writers often try to fill in this deficit with either alternate universe stories that use well-known characters to attract readers, or trying to alter their favorite works in order to compensate for unexplored potential*. It hasn't been unknown for published authors to build their confidence and reader base in fanfic or online original works, exploring genres that usually are niche with few opportunities - a particular example of this is in Japan, where well-known manga authors and artists make doujinshi that can be sold in paper-backs without copywrite accusations.
Or, specifically in the non-erotic section of Fanfiction (which is much larger than most give it credit for), the cause may be related to the fact that a lot of Fanfiction is written for fandoms that presumably lean heavily male, such as Star Trek, Naruto, Transformers, and other Sci-fi or action adventure genres. The theory is that women notice the missing female perspective in the stories, and add it themselves. That tends to fall apart when women write fanfiction without said missing female perspective, hence it being "theory".
Various theories abound as to why this trope has persisted so promiently, but the cause is most likely related to the theory that most visual porn is male-oriented (see: any adult video store or site) while most written porn is female-oriented*, and Fanfiction, like porn, trades heavily in Author Appeal. This trope is extremely common regardless of the reasoning behind it.
This trope has been in effect since well before the internet made it much easier to proliferate fanfic. Studies of early Star Trek fanfiction showed as many as 90% of authors were female in the 1970s, even though at the time such stories could only be shared through fanzines or through sending self-addressed-stamped-envelopes to the authors and having them mail you a manuscript.
This phenomenon has been subjected to academic analysis by ethnographer Camille Bacon-Smith and MIT's Henry Jenkins. Jenkins suggests in Textual Poachers that fanfiction is a reaction on the part of a female audience trying to find their own pleasures in media that caters mostly to males.
The reality regarding fanfic writers though, is that there is a huge contingent of both male writers, and writers in their twenties to thirties - and even lesser numbers in those much older as well. Whether in the non-romantic or the erotic sections of fanfic-dom, you will find a large variety of people from all different backgrounds - including different genders and ages - who enjoy writing fanfic. Even though, yes, there is a lot of Old Shame works that exist on the internet as teenagers past and present write their ideas couched in their favourite characters, there is a very large number of works by people who do have a mature sense of writing structure, and to ignore fanfiction as a ridiculous waste of time with nothing worthy to offer would be a huge mistake.
It is important to remember that this is a trope, not Real Life. Much like Most Writers Are Male is a trope that relies on a background of male-dominated writers but which now is a falsity in an age of equal opportunity, so Most Fanfic Wrters Are Girls is a trope which, although may have been true at some point, is now more of an urban myth (although, like in any fandom or community, the contingent of teenage girls do tend to be the loudest and most active, for good or evil).
See also Shipping, Slash Fic, Everyone Is Gay, Estrogen Brigade, Het is Ew. Compare Most Writers Are Male and Most Tropers Are Young Nerds. Combine with The Internet Is for Porn to get All Women Are Lustful.
Creates a paradox when faced with the trope There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Only examples where a character in the work writes a fanfic are to be added. Parodies and deconstructions should not be added.
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alternative title(s): Most Fanfic Writers Are Female
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