Is LGBTQ+ Identification Really in “Free Fall” Among Teenagers? The Data, Explained

Conservatives rejoiced this week after the Washington Post reported that 2025 data from the U.S. Centers by Disease Control and Prevention appears to indicate that LGBTQ+ identification among young teenagers has dropped over the past few years. But even in the Post’s own reporting, researchers suggest that the data — taken from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey — paints a more complicated picture.“The narrative around a decline in LGBT identity among youth has been around for a while now,” Williams Institute scholar Jody Herman told the Post. “We’ll continue to look at trends over time in our work, but the evidence provided so far for a decline leaves more questions than answers.”Instead, the quote used in the Post’s headline — and touted by right-wingers online — was drawn from Jean M. Twenge, a researcher and professor psychology at San Diego State University, who said the numbers “look like a free fall.”Twenge reported on her Substack “Generation Tech” that young teenage girls account for a significant portion of the drop, noting that the percentage of lesbian and bisexual teenage girls aged 14 to 18 fell from 30% in 2021 to 17% in 2025. Among ninth-grade boys, the declines appeared to be less significant, Twenge noted, as in 2021, 9% of boys identified as bisexual or gay and in 2025, 7% did. Early interpretations of the apparent drop by conservatives claimed that there has been a “sharp decline” in teens identifying as queer, bisexual, lesbian, and gay. But Herman is correct: This narrative is not new. In 2025, soon after initial glances at the data were released, Canadian professor and conservative writer Eric Kaufmann claimed that “trans identification" was in “free fall.” Once again, some pundits have taken this to mean that queer people are “becoming straight” and trans people are detransitioning, supporting the age-old argument among conservative that young people identifying under the LGBTQ+ umbrella are goi