New US health data points to a sharp fall in the number of ninth-grade girls identifying as lesbian or bisexual, prompting fresh debate about identity, social influence and what the figures really show.

Essential Takeaways

  • A marked decline: The share of ninth-grade girls identifying as lesbian or bisexual fell from 30% in 2021 to 17% in 2025.
  • Bisexual identification dropped fastest: The proportion identifying as bisexual alone fell from 26% to 13%.
  • The reason remains uncertain: Researchers have identified the shift, but haven't established a single cause.
  • The figures need context: Survey wording, changing social attitudes and young people's willingness to disclose identity may all affect results.
  • The debate is widening: Commentators disagree over whether the change reflects social pressure, experimentation, improved reporting or a broader cultural shift.

The numbers have changed dramatically

The headline figure is hard to miss. According to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behaviour Survey, 30% of ninth-grade girls identified as lesbian or bisexual in 2021. By 2025, the figure had fallen to 17%.

The change was particularly stark among those identifying as bisexual. That share dropped from 26% to 13%, making the latest results one of the sharpest shifts in the survey's recent identity data. The Washington Post and other outlets have highlighted the decline as an unexpected reversal after years in which reported LGBT identification among teenagers rose.

Still, a percentage isn't a life story. Surveys capture what young people say about themselves at one moment, and answers can be shaped by language, privacy, social climate and the way a question is presented.

Why the CDC survey matters

The Youth Risk Behaviour Survey is designed to monitor health-related behaviours and experiences among secondary-school pupils in the United States. Its value lies in consistency: asking large groups similar questions over time can reveal broad movements that smaller polls might miss.

The CDC's 2025 survey materials provide the official framework for the latest results, while its wider Youth Risk Behaviour Survey programme offers historical context. That makes the new numbers useful for spotting a trend, even if they can't explain exactly why it happened.

Researchers and journalists have therefore been cautious about claiming a direct cause. As Metro Weekly reported, fewer younger teenagers are identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual, but the data itself doesn't prove that a particular policy, organisation or cultural campaign produced the change.

A reversal, but not a simple explanation

The fall has already become political. Some conservative commentators have described it as evidence that schools, government agencies and campaign groups previously encouraged young people towards labels they might not otherwise have chosen. Others argue that such claims go far beyond what the survey can establish.

Fox News framed the result as a striking reversal, while coverage elsewhere has stressed the uncertainty surrounding the causes. That disagreement matters because the same figures can be read in very different ways: as a correction, a reporting shift, changing fashion, or a sign that some teenagers feel less comfortable using an identity label.

There may also be an age effect. Ninth graders are young, and identity can be exploratory rather than settled. A teenager who selects one answer in a school survey may choose another later, or may stop using a label altogether without believing that their feelings have fundamentally changed.

What should parents and educators take from it?

The most useful response is probably curiosity rather than certainty. Parents and teachers shouldn't assume that a falling percentage means young people are less confused, more pressured or suddenly thinking alike. Nor should they treat a survey response as a diagnosis.

A calm conversation about privacy, respect and the freedom to ask questions is more constructive than turning the figures into a cultural scoreboard. Young people need room to describe themselves in their own words, including when those words change. That can feel messy, but adolescence rarely arrives in neat statistical categories.

It also helps to distinguish identity from wellbeing. The CDC's survey programme covers a wide range of health and safety issues, so the figures should be discussed alongside questions about mental health, bullying, social support and school climate, rather than in isolation.

The bigger question is how identity is measured

The latest results are likely to fuel more research into how teenagers understand labels and how willing they are to share them. Future surveys may need to examine not only which identity a pupil selects, but also whether that label feels stable, private, experimental or shaped by peer expectations.

For now, the safest conclusion is also the least dramatic: identification among ninth-grade girls has fallen sharply in this dataset, and the reasons aren't yet known. That is an important finding, but it isn't the final word on adolescent sexuality or identity.

Statistics can start a conversation. They can't finish one.

Explore the figures with care, and leave room for young people to be more complicated than a survey box.

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