Younger US High-School Students Report Lower Gay and Bisexual Identification, CDC Data Reveals

Younger US high school students are reporting lower rates of lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) identification in the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), according to an analysis of newly released federal data. The CDC survey covers a nationally representative sample of students in grades 9 through 12 at public and private schools.

Psychologist Jean Twenge, who analysed the newly released figures, wrote on X that LGB identification had 'plummeted among younger teens in 2025'. She said the change goes beyond labels. 'There's also a decline in LGB sex among younger teens who are sexually active, so it's not just identification,' she added.

Younger Students Show the Biggest Change

Twenge writes that the trends are 'very different depending on age' and compares the 2025 YRBS figures with earlier survey results. She previously reported a decline in LGB identification among US adults aged 18 to 24 using early 2025 data, but said that finding disappeared when the full year of 2025 data became available.

The new analysis therefore concerns high-school students rather than the broader population of young adults. The CDC makes the underlying 2025 YRBS datasets and documentation publicly available, allowing the figures to be examined independently.

CDC Report Leaves Sexual Identity Findings Out

The 2025 CDC report focuses on diet, physical activity, sleep, digital behaviour, and mental health and suicide risk. A September 24 report by Stateline noted that the publication leaves out national findings on several subjects that appeared in earlier reports, including sexual behaviour and demographic disparities.

The underlying 2025 YRBS data still include sexual identity and sex of sexual contacts, but those findings are not highlighted in the national report. The difference is also reflected in the report's length, with the 2025 publication running to 36 pages compared with 88 pages for the 2023 report.

The 2023 report included findings on sexual and gender identity and, for the first time, asked students nationally about transgender identity.

The 2025 report does record an improvement in one mental-health measure: the proportion of students reporting persistent sadness or hopelessness fell to 33 per cent, from 40 per cent in 2023.

Other Research Offers Context

Eric Kaufmann, a politics professor at the University of Buckingham, has tracked falling rates of gender and sexual minority identification among young people for some time.

In an October 2025 thread on X, he wrote that 'trans identification is in free fall among the young'. He added that 'Non-conforming sexual identity (queer, questioning, etc) is also in sharp decline.'

Kaufmann rejected the idea that teenagers had simply become more conservative. 'It's not because the kids became less woke, more religious or more conservative,' he wrote. On whether improved mental health played a role, his answer was 'Yes, in part.'

Neither researcher's work establishes a cause. The survey measures what students report about their sexual identity and sexual behaviour, so the figures alone cannot establish why reported identification has changed.

The Youth Risk Behavior Survey has long been a national source of data on the health of LGB students in the US. A change in how many teenagers identify that way therefore matters to the schools and health services that rely on those counts.

The YRBS Explorer also carries a notice stating that the site was restored under a court order. It also states that 'Any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from truth.'

Whether the fall among younger teens continues will only become clear when the next survey results are published. Until then, researchers are working from figures that remain available in the underlying CDC data but are not highlighted in the agency's 2025 national report.