Is the LGBT Fad Fading?

Author: John Stonestreet and Dr. Timothy D. Padgett

On an especially prescient episode of Seinfeld, Kramer refused to “wear the ribbon” during a walk-a-thon to support AIDS research. Last month, life imitated art at a school in Burlington, Massachusetts, when a group of middle schoolers refused to participate in Pride Day. Instead of rainbow colors, many wore black, or even red, white, and blue. Some announced their pronouns as “U, S, and A.” When teachers and community leaders denounced their sacrilege, parents came to their kids’ defense. As one mom said, “I wish these schools would pump the brakes on what they are shoving down our kids throats.” 

This may not be a random incident. After astonishing growth in the last few decades, the number of young people, identifying as LGBT is now in decline. “Trans identification,” according to Professor and author Eric Kaufmann, “is in freefall. (And) non-conforming sexual identity is also in sharp decline.” Last year, his report on the student body survey from the exclusive Phillips Academy Andover found “a drop from over 9 percent non-binary in 2023 to 3 percent in 2025.”  

His report was quickly and loudly condemned as flawed. However, at the end of September, Dr. Jean Twenge confirmed that not only has there been a shift in younger Americans identifying as LGBT, but that the largest declines are among younger teenage cohorts. As Twenge put it, “(T)he headline result is for 9th graders (14 and 15 years old): Identifying as LGB absolutely plummets between 2023 and 2025, from 17% to 11%.” Also, the largest decline has been among younger teenage girls, the group that had experienced the largest increase in LGBT identification between 2015 and 2021. 

The most likely explanation for the significant change is that the high level of identification in previous years was the result of a social contagion that was brought on by, among other things, Covid isolation and the attending upsurge in social media interactions. Clearly, the growth in LGBT identification was not a naturally occurring event.  

This was always obvious, of course. In the early 2010’s, we were still critiquing the Kinsey Report claim that 10% of people were gay and lesbian. In the decade that followed, that number ballooned as quickly as new letters could be added to the ever-growing acronym of sexual identifications. School teachers and youth pastors were reporting that all of their students identified as LGBT because, as one told me, “no one wants to be cis or straight anymore.” Clearly, for younger Americans, the novelty of being gay, bi, nonbinary, and trans is wearing off. 

At the same time, as Twenge discussed in a Substack post a week earlier, the numbers have not moved significantly among older Americans, especially millennial women. This means that young people will continue be taught and influenced by adults who remain convinced that it’s their sacred duty to promote LGBT identification and lifestyles. This means that young people who question the validity of such categories will inevitably find themselves in conflict with older, true believers. 

After all, to anyone who has built their own identity on being an “ally,” the shift in sexual identification is a tangible threat. A refusal to go along with “PRIDE” celebrations is shocking. Even more, admitting wrong is unthinkable, because that would mean admitting that children have been harmed, the irreversible medical “treatments” were for nothing, and threatening parents with blame for a child’s suicide was manipulation without cause. 

Still, it will be hard for “allies” to claim that the early 2020s upsurge in LGBT identification was a naturally occurring phenomenon of students “being true to themselves.” Biological reality has always been on the side of truth. It is our responsibility as Christians to be on the side of truth also. 

At the same time, the next trend lines may include an influx of people forced to acknowledge how they have messed up their own lives and even the lives of children. They will not only need to know what is true about who we are, male and female, but also that repentance is good, forgiveness is available, and restoration is possible.