The collapse of trans identity

Jonathon Van Maren, First Things

Monday, November 17, 2025

After a decade of record numbers showing young people identifying somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum (in 2023, the Centers for Disease Control reported that around a quarter of high school students identified as LGBTQ), the trend may have finally peaked. In fact, the decline in “non-binary” identification has been accompanied by a ten-point plunge in the other “unconventional sexual identifications” that created the steep rise in LGBTQ-identifying youth in the first place, including the increasingly amorphous “queer,” “bisexual,” and simply “questioning.” But how far will it drop, and how much damage will this social contagion leave in its wake?