Recent findings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveal a significant decrease in the number of younger teenagers identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. This trend is particularly evident among ninth-grade girls, raising questions about the underlying factors causing this shift.
Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, conducted an analysis of the CDC’s 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey data. She found that only 17% of ninth-grade girls identified as lesbian or bisexual in 2025, a drop from 30% in 2021. The percentage identifying as bisexual alone fell from 26% to 13% during the same period.
Experts and commentators are divided in their interpretations of these statistics. While some attribute the decline to cultural shifts, others argue that the data does not provide a clear explanation.
Glenn T. Stanton from Focus on the Family remarked on the uncertainty, stating, “’Why?’ is exactly the question.” He noted that Twenge herself acknowledged the lack of a definitive cause, which he found to be a refreshing stance from an academic.
Stanton hypothesizes that changing social and cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality might be influencing this trend. He suggested that a previous increase in LGBT identification among youth might have been driven by social contagion, describing it as a trend possibly losing momentum.
“I think another related reason young teens might not be identifying with LGB is because those are fundamentally binary ‘old school’ identities and it’s now all about the 126 different genders there supposedly are, so the youngest among us know the cool thing is to identify with the Q, which of course, is not a thing,” Stanton explained.
Twenge’s analysis also noted that the trend is less pronounced in older teenagers. Among 12th-graders, LGB identification decreased slightly from 18% in 2023 to 16% in 2025. For ninth-graders, the decline was from 17% to 11% in the same timeframe. Additionally, a significant drop was observed among ninth-grade girls reporting at least one same-sex partner.
Twenge speculated that these changes might indicate a generational shift, but admitted uncertainty about the exact causes.
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, linked the trend to policy changes, suggesting in a post on X, “Amazing what happens when you cut the Department of Education and USAID.” However, Twenge countered that these declines began during the Biden administration and questioned the political explanation’s focus on younger students.
Twenge described the situation as a “mystery,” indicating plans to explore several potential factors, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, political shifts, and social media influences. The CDC survey itself does not clarify the reasons behind changes in identity reporting.
A 2025 analysis by Eric Kaufmann, published by the Manhattan Institute, reported a decline in transgender and queer identification among Generation Z since 2023. The report, titled “The Decline of Trans and Queer Identity among Young Americans,” analyzed data from a survey of over 60,000 U.S. undergraduates.
Kaufmann found that 3.6% of respondents identified as a gender other than male or female in 2025, down from 5.2% in 2024 and 6.8% in both 2022 and 2023.
This article was originally written by www.christiantoday.com
