At the age of 14, every teenager experiences a rite of passage: the start of high school, The desire to conform infiltrates vulnerable minds, leading some to question their identity. For the last decade, “conformity” in many high schools across looked like identifying or allying with the LGBT community. But now, experts aren’t so sure.

In 2021, 30% of girls in their freshman year of high school identified as lesbian or bisexual. But in 2025, that number dropped to 17%, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, wrote in her Substack “Generation Tech” last month, “Much of the change in LGB identification among girls is a drop in identifying as bisexual. … Once again, the 9th graders show the largest change. While 26% of 9th grade girls identified as bisexual in 2021, only 13% — half as many — did in 2025.”

“It really does look like a free fall,” Twenge added. “But what’s causing it is unclear.”

Senior scholar at UCLA Jody Herman told The Washington Post, “The study doesn’t provide confidence intervals to determine whether the differences are actually significant. The narrative around a decline in LGBT identity among youth has been around for a while now. 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.”

According to Twenge’s analysis of the 2025 CDC data, the same does not go for young men. “The decline appears to be driven almost entirely by girls. Identifying as LGB dropped from 27% in 2023 to 22% in 2025 among girls, and from 9% to 7% among boys,” she continued. “The previous increase in identifying as LGB was also larger among girls, with a 128% increase (more than doubling) from 2015 to 2021 among girls and a 99% increase (doubling) from 2015 to 2023 among boys.”

Her analysis continued, “For 12th graders, 17 and 18 years old, identifying as LGB declines only a few percentage points between 2023 and 2025 (from 18% to 16%). There’s more of a decline for 11th graders (16 and 17 years old) and more still for 10th graders (15 and 16 years old) ... But the headline result is for 9th graders (14 and 15 years old): Identifying as LGB absolutely plummets between 2023 and 2025, from 17% to 11%.”

The statistics generated varying reactions on social media, as people offered their own rationale for the shift. One X user commented on the statistics, “If bigotry was the issue, we’d see declines in all groups . The likely answer is that girls this age are notoriously prone to social contagions and following the crowd. For the incoming freshmen class, the fad has run its course.”

Another user wondered if the decreasing number is the result of cultural whiplash to the progressive agenda: “[It] went too far, specifically the trans movement. The gender madness, the integration of men into women’s sports etc. it all went too far and a backlash is forming.” A third user agreed, “Since the change happened in such a short period of time, we know it's not biological evolution or genetics. Clearly, it's cultural.”

Joseph Backholm, host of the “Politics for Happy People” podcast told The Washington Stand that he believes that the 2021 statistics are the result of a social contagion. “Sexual desires and identity are complicated topics, but this is very strong evidence that Gen Z wasn't really born that way,” he explained. “It was fashionable to have an LGBTQ+ identity, and it seems to now be less fashionable.”