The share of ninth-grade girls identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual fell from roughly 30% in 2021 to 17% in 2025, according to a new analysis of federal survey data.
Bisexual identification alone dropped from about 26% to 13%, accounting for most of the change. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, published the findings September 28 in Generation Tech.
Resource Center, a Dallas LGBTQ organization, partnered with Dallas ISD on educator training, The Dallas Express reported in 2024. Texas has since restricted school activities involving sexual orientation or “gender identity”.
The Dallas Express reproduced the rounded ninth-grade estimates using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s weighted national data files. The decline concerns sexual-orientation labels; it does not measure “transgender” identification.
The shift was much smaller among 12th-grade girls, whose combined lesbian, gay or bisexual identification changed from about 26% in 2021 to 25% in 2025, Twenge found.
“I have to confess: I have no idea,” Twenge wrote about why the decline was so pronounced among younger girls.
Twenge calculated the percentages using respondents identifying as heterosexual, gay or lesbian, or bisexual as the denominator. She excluded other-identity, uncertain and unclear responses because survey options varied across years. Repeated surveys compare different students, rather than tracking individual girls changing labels.
What Dallas ISD was doing
An Out for Safe Schools presentation sent to the district in March 2022 urged student-club advisers to “Support identity development” and listed “Long-Term Systems and Cultural Change” among the goals of Gay-Straight Alliances, or GSAs.
The materials also listed “Youth Leaders in LGBTQ Movement” as a goal. Adviser guidance included helping students organize events and campaigns and connecting them with outside organizations. The presenters described the clubs as places for support and activism and promoted school safety as a program goal.
Plans for LGBTQ teacher trainings at elementary, middle and high schools in 2022 appeared in separate internal communications, The Dallas Express reported on May 28, 2024.
What Texas has changed
Senate Bill 12, effective September 1, 2025, restricts school instruction, guidance, activities and programming concerning sexual orientation or “gender identity”. It also bars district authorization or sponsorship of clubs based on those topics and employee assistance with student “social transitioning.”
The law preserves specified student-speech and health-service exceptions and requires parental consent for participation in district-authorized or sponsored student clubs.
A February 20, 2026, preliminary injunction blocked enforcement of challenged provisions by Houston, Katy and Plano ISDs. That order did not extend statewide or cover Dallas ISD.
Employees were to receive policy packets covering the law’s restrictions on diversity, “equity” and inclusion programs, classroom instruction and student social transitioning by September 25, according to a September 14, 2026, Dallas ISD notice.
The notice does not identify whether the earlier Resource Center materials were withdrawn or revised. The national 2025 survey was conducted in the spring, before SB 12 took effect, so those findings cannot demonstrate an effect from that law.
State Rep. Jeff Leach (R-District 67) asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) Tuesday to investigate organizations he alleges are helping Texans evade SB 12 after the “Transgender” Education Network of Texas’ (TENT) school toolkit drew scrutiny, The Dallas Express reported.
TENT’s toolkit, updated August 2026, encourages students to challenge GSA rejections through district grievances and consider hobby clubs or off-campus organizing. The group presents it as guidance for navigating school policies and advocating for students.
What the Texas results show
Bisexual identification among Texas high school students was 10.5% in 2021 and 11.6% in 2023, according to CDC tables. Those statewide estimates cover both sexes across all four grades.
The state figures use a broader response denominator than Twenge’s analysis. A comparable 2025 estimate for Texas ninth-grade girls could not be verified from the public sources reviewed.
