A man who spent eight years identifying as a woman is casting doubt on reports of a dramatic decline in teenagers identifying as gay or bisexual, warning that social media and peer pressure may be influencing how young Americans describe their sexual orientation.Walt Heyer, who detransitioned roughly 40 years ago and now serves as a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, told Fox News Digital in an exclusive video interview that he remains skeptical of the apparent shift, suggesting some teenagers may be reluctant to openly identify as gay or bisexual because of social pressures."I don't really believe that there's a big dramatic free fall," Heyer said, referring to recent reports about declining rates of gay and bisexual identification among some teenagers.LOG CABIN REPUBLICANS REMOVES 'T' FROM LGBT ADVOCACY, SAYS 'RADICAL' TRANS ACTIVISTS ARE ERODING GAY SUPPORTWalt Heyer lived as a woman for eight years named "Laura Jensen," before returning to live as a man.(Walt Heyer)"I think what's happening is that because of social media, there's a lot more influence on people who may not want to fall into that classification on a social media level and will withhold the fact that they are gay or bisexual, but really don't want to openly admit it," Heyer said.The comments come after The Washington Post highlighted CDC data showing that the percentage of ninth-grade girls identifying as lesbian or bisexual fell from 30% in 2021 to 17% in 2025.
The share identifying as bisexual alone dropped from 26% to 13% over the same period.PRISHA MOSELY: AS A DETRANSITIONER AND MOM, I KNOW WHAT GENDER IDEOLOGY STOLE FROM METhe percentage of boys identifying as gay or bisexual has remained pretty much unchanged over the past decade, according to CDC data reported by The Washington Post.(iStock)The percentage of boys identifying as gay or bisexual has remained largely unchanged over the past decade, while the share of high school girls identifying as lesbian or bisexual surged fol...