Staff Reports
New analysis of the CDC’s 2025 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) has produced a surprise: fewer high‑school students now say they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). The drop is not spread evenly. Independent analyst Jean M. Twenge’s breakdown of the raw YRBS file shows the biggest fall is among the youngest teens, especially ninth‑grade girls. That shift deserves more than a shrug.
What the 2025 YRBS data shows
The headline numbers are clear in the underlying YRBS data that analysts pulled from the CDC. Ninth‑grade students who reported an LGB identity fell from roughly 17 percent in the prior wave to about 11 percent in 2025. Overall female LGB identification moved from about 27 percent to 22 percent, while male identification edged down from about 9 percent to 7 percent. Seniors remain the most likely to report an LGB identity, near 16 percent, so this is mainly a change among younger teens.
Professor Jean M. Twenge’s public decomposition of the national survey made the pattern visible: the decline appears driven almost entirely by girls and by the youngest grade. That matters because the climb in non‑heterosexual identification in recent years — especially among girls — was used to argue for policy changes, school programs, and funding. A sudden swing the other way raises obvious questions about why teens answer the way they do.
Key caveats reporters and parents should note
Before anyone declares victory or sounds an alarm, remember some important limits. The YRBS changed its sexual‑identity question response options starting in 2021, which complicates long‑run comparisons. Not every school district includes the sexual‑identity items every time the survey runs, so coverage varies. Self‑reported identity can shift with social pressure and with how safe students feel answering a government survey. And finally, identity is not the same as behavior — those are separate measures in the data. The CDC’s public summary this year emphasized other health topics, so these sexual‑identity shifts came from analysts digging into the full dataset, not from a headline in the agency’s brief.
Why this matters — and what to do next
These numbers affect how schools, health systems, and policymakers plan services for youth. If a big share of one cohort reclassifies itself from one year to the next because of trends, social pressure, or changing question wording, planners need to know which is driving the change. Reporters should reproduce the CDC cross‑tabs, ask the agency about methods and coverage, and get comments from academic and youth‑health experts as well as advocacy groups. Parents should pay attention but not panic: trends like this often reflect social currents as much as private truth. If nothing else, this data should teach a simple lesson — teens chase trends, and labels can be seasonal. That fact is worth keeping in mind when public policy and school programs are on the line.
