U.S.: Number of Teens Identifying as LGBT+ Declines
U.S. federal survey data show a decline from 2023 to 2025 in high school students identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual. The share fell five percentage points among girls, to 22%, and two points among boys, to 7%. Declines were especially notable among ninth-graders, whose share fell from 17% to 11%; among twelfth-graders, it fell from 18% to 16%. Researchers say the reasons are unclear, while commentators debate whether cultural influences, political pressures or adolescents’ development explain the changes.
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The 2025 U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey recorded a decline in high school students identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual compared with 2023, especially among girls and younger students. Researchers and commentators have offered competing explanations, but the available figures do not establish why the change occurred or whether it will last.
In an analysis comparing the CDC’s 2025 survey with its 2023 results, psychologist Jean Twenge reported that the share of girls identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual fell five percentage points to 22%, while the share of boys fell two points to 7%. Among ninth-graders, the proportion declined from 17% to 11%; among twelfth-graders, it fell from 18% to 16%.
Twenge’s analysis excluded respondents who chose another description, were unsure, or did not understand the question. The figures concern sexual-orientation identification, not transgender identification, which relates to gender identity.
The decline follows substantial increases over earlier years: Twenge reported that identification among girls rose 128% over six years from a 2015 baseline, and among boys rose 99% over eight years. A University of Minnesota study also found the share of surveyed students identifying as heterosexual increased from 76% in 2022 to 83% in 2025.
Twenge said the reason for the decline is unknown and that further research is needed to determine whether it represents a lasting trend or a temporary fluctuation. The article also stresses that changes in survey responses do not by themselves show that underlying orientation, attraction, or behavior has changed.
Conservative commentators cited cultural influences, including the possibility that some young people adopted LGBT identities in response to social pressures or messages and are now reconsidering those labels. These explanations are presented as hypotheses, not findings established by the survey.
Other commentators suggested that teenagers may be less willing to disclose a non-heterosexual identity in a more hostile political climate. The article notes that a modest decline among ninth- and tenth-graders appeared in 2021, while the larger decreases began around 2024, during the Biden administration; this timeline complicates explanations centered solely on a change in administration.
The article also discusses the Supreme Court’s decision in Chiles v. Salazar, which found a Colorado law unconstitutional in the circumstances involving therapist Kaley Chiles’s conversations with clients about sex and gender. A psychologist quoted in the article said the ruling could allow more freedom to explore such questions in counseling, but the decision does not establish that sexual orientation is generally changeable or that counseling can reliably produce a particular outcome.
Overall, the survey indicates that U.S. teenagers reported their sexual identities differently in 2025 than in recent years. The reasons for the change—and whether it will continue—remain unresolved.
Adolescent sexual identity formation amid social and cultural influences
Adolescent sexual identity formation is neither a purely private act of self-definition nor something dictated by one influence—such as biology, family, peers, or culture—alone. Catholic sources describe it as part of a young person’s broader formation as a bodily, relational, and spiritual person. They recognize that family life, friendships, education, experience, and culture shape how a young person understands and lives out sexual identity, while insisting that these influences should be approached with care rather than treated as a simple formula for who someone will become.
The phrase can refer to several related but distinct things: a person’s sexed bodily reality; their sense of themselves; the social roles and expectations associated with being male or female; and their patterns of sexual attraction or desire. These should not be collapsed into one another. The Congregation for Catholic Education distinguishes the male–female difference from the varied cultural ways that difference is lived out. It also acknowledges that temperament, family history, culture, education, friends, and other experiences influence a person’s development.
That distinction helps avoid two opposing oversimplifications. One is to treat cultural expectations as if they completely determine a young person’s identity. The other is to imagine that development occurs in isolation from relationships and society. The Catholic account instead sees identity as embodied and relational: the person develops through encounters with others, while culture can shape how sexual difference is understood and expressed.
Adolescence brings questions about self-understanding, the body, relationships, and one’s future. The Pontifical Council for the Family notes that adolescents may struggle with self-identity, accepting their bodies, and integrating sexuality into a mature personality. It presents this as a constructive but vulnerable period—one in which young people need guidance, not ridicule or indifference.
A scholarly reflection by Stephen J. Heaney emphasizes that sexual desires do not develop on a blank slate: they are shaped within relationships and habits already forming in childhood and adolescence. He identifies parents, siblings, friends, culture, bodily changes, and a young person’s own choices as influences. This can help explain why adolescents may experience their desires and self-understanding as unsettled or complex. But it does not establish that a particular social influence causes a particular sexual identity, or that adults can reliably predict an adolescent’s eventual identity from present feelings.
Peer groups deserve particular attention. A Vatican education document notes that relationships and youth groups can have a significant formative influence, because personal relationships are important to personality development. The point is not that peers are inherently harmful: friendship can support growth, but peer pressure or exclusion can also make it harder for a young person to think freely and honestly.
Catholic teaching does not treat culture as irrelevant. Social expectations can shape how young people interpret themselves, their bodies, and their relationships. At the same time, cultural influence is not the whole story: a young person is not merely a product of a social group, nor should adults assume that every expressed identity is simply a passing trend or merely the result of outside pressure. The available sources support recognizing a range of formative influences, but they do not provide a clinical account capable of explaining every individual experience.
The Church’s educational guidance places this formation within a broader vision of human dignity and relationship. The young person is to be helped toward mature self-understanding, solidarity with others, and a life open to God—not reduced to sexual feelings or treated as a problem to be corrected. The Pontifical Council for the Family describes healthy formation as helping adolescents accept themselves as embodied persons and become open to God and society.
This means that adults should neither shame young people for questions or unwanted feelings nor assume that affirmation requires abandoning thoughtful guidance. The USCCB’s youth framework calls for clear teaching delivered with warmth and genuine concern, and for helping young people discern amid the emotions of these formative years.
“We must share the truth in love, with warmth and genuine concern.”
The force of this counsel is its insistence on both elements. Truth without care can become humiliating or alienating; care without honest formation can leave a young person without guidance. Catholic accompaniment seeks to listen seriously, speak respectfully, and help the adolescent grow in freedom and maturity.
Parents have a primary role in formation, but they should not be left alone. The USCCB describes parents as primary catechists and calls for support from extended family, trusted adults, pastors, teachers, and mentors. It presents youth formation as intergenerational and intercultural: the wider community can help families accompany young people over time.
In practice, that involves making room for honest conversation without forcing a young person to adopt a label or disclose more than they are ready to share. Adults can ask what the young person means by a term, what experiences or concerns lie behind it, and whether they feel safe and respected. They can also challenge stereotypes—for example, the idea that there is only one acceptable way to be a boy or a girl—while distinguishing cultural expectations from the Catholic understanding of embodied sexual difference.
Formation should also address relationships, responsibility, and the meaning of sexuality, not just identity labels. The USCCB framework calls for teaching that helps young people distinguish lust from love, understand chastity, and consider choices in light of their state in life. It presents this not simply as a list of prohibitions but as a positive account of sexuality as a gift that is to be integrated into a life of love and self-giving.
The supplied Catholic sources offer a framework for understanding formation and pastoral care; they do not settle every psychological or medical question about adolescent identity development. In particular, they do not establish that social or cultural influences, by themselves, cause a particular identity, nor do they support treating every adolescent’s experience as identical. The sound conclusion is more measured: identity formation is complex; relationships and culture matter; adolescence can involve vulnerability and uncertainty; and young people need patient, truthful, and respectful accompaniment.