2023 LGBTQ+ Youth Report

In 2012, HRC’s groundbreaking research, Growing up LGBT in America, reported on the experiences of over 10,000 LGBTQ+ youth aged 13-17 and painted a stark picture of the difficulties they faced.

In 2017, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation partnered with researchers at the University of Connecticut to deploy a comprehensive survey capturing the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth in their family settings, schools, social circles, and communities. Over 12,000 youth aged 13-17 participated in the survey, with representation from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Since then, LGBTQ+ Americans have seen strides toward equality and acceptance. More Americans of all ages are proudly and openly identifying as LGBTQ+ than ever before, and public acceptance for marriage equality and non-discrimination protections are the highest it has ever been.¹

Yet, at the same time, the LGBTQ+ community has seen an intensifying wave of attacks, aimed at pushing LGBTQ+ Americans back into the closet, and out of all aspects of daily life. Each year has seen an increase in anti-LGBTQ+ state legislation, with more bills introduced—and passed—in 2022 and 2023 than ever before. The vast majority of these bills directly target LGBTQ+ youth, and transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and other non-cisgender gender-expansive (referred to as “transgender and gender-expansive youth” throughout this report for brevity) youth in particular, banning or regulating their ability to live openly and freely as their true selves in everywhere from school bathrooms and athletics, to accessing gender-affirming care. Anti-LGBTQ+ legislative attacks were so pervasive in 2023, the Human Rights Campaign issued a National State of Emergency for LGBTQ+ Americans for the first time in their 40+ year history.

The Covid-19 pandemic, and subsequent lockdowns of 2020-2021 resulted in worsening mental health for adolescents across the United States, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI), while also exacerbating the disparity between LGBTQ+ and cisgender/heterosexual youth. In 2021, the CDC reported that 42% of all high school aged youth in the US experienced “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness”, the highest percentage reported in over a decade. That same year, almost 70% of LGBQ+ youth reported experiencing this, twice that of non-LGBTQ+ youth (35%).

The results of HRC’s 2022 Youth Survey reveal persistent, serious challenges for LGBTQ+ youth, continuing trends observed in the 2017 study. In many cases, the cards remain stacked against LGBTQ+ youth in terms of acceptance and support from their families, their mental health and safety in schools. Transgender and gender-expansive youth also face unique challenges, with harmful anti-trans laws, and a lack of inclusive school policies and procedures, creating obstacles to their safety and well-being.

However, there is also room for hope. Across the country, LGBTQ+ youth are advocating for inclusivity and equality in their homes, schools and communities. Parents, caregivers, school administrators, educators, counselors and other youth-serving professionals can support LGBTQ+ youth by following their lead and implementing the actionable guidelines at the end of this report, in order to create safe, affirming, and welcoming spaces for LGBTQ+ youth.

Throughout adolescence—and, in fact, throughout life—LGBTQ+ youth grapple with when, and to who, to disclose their sexual orientation and/or gender identity However, the vast majority of LGBTQ+ youth are out to at least some people in their lives (Table 7).

Trends are similar between LGBQ+ youth disclosing their sexual orientation (Figure 8), and transgender and gender-expansive youth disclosing their gender identity (Figure 9).

• Both LGBQ+ and transgender and gender-expansive youth are most likely to be out to peers and friends their own age, including, in descending order, LGBTQ+ friends, non-LGBTQ+ friends, and classmates.
• LGBQ+ and transgender and gender-expansive youth are least likely to be out to their athletic coach(es) and/or their religious community.

Access to inclusive school resources differs by geographic region – with access much lower in those geographic regions of the United States with worse policy environments for LGBTQ+ people.⁶

As ranked by the Movement Advancement Project, states in the Northeast and West almost exclusively are categorized as having a high policy 'score'—meaning their policy environment is the most welcoming to LGBTQ+ people. States in the Midwest are mixed, whereas states in the South are almost exclusively ranked as having a low, or even negative, policy score, indicating a much more hostile political environment, with fewer protections and access to rights.

This same pattern is replicated in access to inclusive school resources.

Almost 6 in 10 (59.4%) LGBTQ+ youth—including 62.6% of transgender and gender-expansive youth—have been “teased, bullied, or treated badly” at school for at least one reason ¹⁸ in the prior year (Table 14).

More than half each of LGBQ+ youth (51.7%), and transgender and gender-expansive youth (55.6%) were victimized specifically due to their sexual identity, gender identity, and/or gender expression (SO/GI/GE; Figure 14).¹⁹

Less than half (48.9%) of LGBTQ+ youth received therapy in the prior year (Table 18).

• Over 4 in 10 (41.7%) youth overall –and over 8 in 10 (81.7%) of those who did not receive therapy—had an unmet need for therapy, defined as wanting to receive therapy, but being unable to do so.

Of those who used therapy or counseling services in the prior year, the majority were able to access LGBTQ+ inclusive care.

• Almost 8 in 10 (79%) youth reported their therapist was very (38.2%) or somewhat (40.8%) informed about LGTBQ+ issues.

About the survey
This study was designed to follow up on HRC and the University of Connecticut’s 2017 LGBTQ+ Youth Survey and the growing body of research highlighting disparities and unique challenges for LGBTQ+ youth. Following, in 2022, HRC Foundation and faculty at the University of Connecticut once again created and fielded a survey to assess the multiple factors and experiences that influence the wellbeing of queer youth.

The 150+ question quantitative survey, the 2022 LGBTQ+ Youth Survey, was fielded between January and October 2022, via Qualtrics.com. The survey was advertised through social media both to HRC followers and a general LGBTQ+ online audience. It was also promoted and shared by other LGBTQ+ focused and allied organizations, social media influencers and celebrities.

All youth who were interested in participating in the survey were first screened for eligibility (more information on this below). Individuals that were both eligible and deemed to not be scammers or bots were sent a link to an anonymous, online, self-report Qualtrics.com survey through an email address they provided at the end of the screener survey.

Respondents consented to participate in the survey by filling on an online consent form and were given the option to receive a $5 gift card (to Amazon or Starbucks), and/or a free one-year membership to the Human Rights Campaign, as an optional thanks for completing the survey. The consent form, survey questionnaire, and research protocol were reviewed and approved by the University of Connecticut Institutional Review Board.

About the sample
Youth were eligible to participate in the survey if they (a) self-identified as LGBTQ+; (b) were 13-18 years of age; (c) resided in the United States of America at the time of survey completion; and (d) consented to be part of the survey. All respondents were screened into the survey as part of providing a qualifying answer or combination of answers to the survey questions about sexual orientation, gender identity and sex assigned at birth. The research team also reviewed IP Addresses to determine if a screened participant had filled out duplicate screener surveys.

Given the massive proliferation in scam and bots, the University of Connecticut research team further worked to screen out scammers before enrolling participants in the survey. While the research team planned to send survey invitation links to all educational institutional emails (.edu, .us, .net, .org) without added verification, it became clear that scammers could obtain “.edu” emails from community colleges. These scammers were identified as screener responses from the same community college .edu would be submitted very quickly in a short time span with very similar responses (e.g., same sexual orientation, same gender identity).

Those with non-institutional affiliated accounts (e.g., @gmail.com) had to engage in one of two verification methods in order to participate:

(1) Participants could send a photo to the research team of any government- or institution-issued photo identification (e.g., school ID, college ID, Driver's license or passport). Participants were told that photos could be redacted from their image of their ID. Through this method, the research team verified that the person’s identity, age, and name, matched what was reported.

(2) Participants could video chat (via Facetime, Zoom, Webex, Facebook messenger) with the research team to verify their identity in a way that keeps them anonymous (e.g., their name does not need to be attached to their video), and were then able to provide an email through which they could receive remuneration.

Two research assistants processed all payments and identity verification. Through these two methods, 95 participants had their identity verified with photo identification (e.g., state driver’s license, passport, military ID), 106 participants had their identity verified with their school identification, and nine participants had their identity verified over a video call (e.g., Zoom, Facetime). If consensus could not be reached over verification, we opted to provide the payment to the participant. An additional 714 participants were labeled as needing to be verified but were unable to receive remuneration as they did not follow up with the research team through one of the two options mentioned above. This information was not available to HRC Foundation staff.

All names and other identifying information were kept separate from the survey data analysis file, and was not provided to HRC researchers, ensuring responses remained de-identified.

17,578 respondents were deemed eligible, consented to participate, and started the survey, a total of 12,706 (72.3%) of whom completed at least half of the questions and thus were eligible for inclusion in data analysis. Respondents were further excluded if they were missing data on sexual orientation and gender identity (n=40 respondents excluded) or age and race/ethnicity (n=51 excluded), for a final analysis sample of 12,615 youth (71.8% of all respondents who initiated the survey), from all 50 states and Washington, DC.

About the data
Data was imported from Qualtrics into SPSS and Excel for initial data cleaning by University of Connecticut researchers. For the present report, HRC Foundation researchers imported data into Stata (v.17) for final data cleaning, variable creation, and analysis.

This report provides an overview of key findings from the 2022 LGBTQ+ Youth Survey, but does not attempt to represent all of the data or the different intersectional experiences across the LGBTQ community. The HRC Foundation will be releasing future analyses of this survey data exploring how different experiences, identities and variables interact to contribute to the well-being of queer and trans youth, as well as exploring additional outcomes and sectors of daily life.

¹ Jeffrey M. Jones, “U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%,” (Gallup, 2023), Available at https://news.gallup.com/poll/470708/lgbt-identification-steady.aspx; “Table 4: Number and percentage of students, by sexual identity — United States and selected U.S. sites, Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, 2021” (Centers for Disease Control Division of Adolescent and School Health, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, 2023), Available at https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/supplemental-mmwr/students_by_sexual_identity.htm

² Experiencing an instance of parental support and/or rejection defined as stating that the event in question occurred “rarely,” “sometimes,” or “often” in response to the question “How often do your parents or caregivers...”

³ The survey did not assess age of gender identity disclosure to friends and families, it only asked for the age transgender and gender-expansive people first told “anyone” they were not cisgender

⁴ “Does your school offer curriculum related to sexual education?” Across the sample, half (49.8%) reported their school offers sex education, but it is not LGBTQ+ inclusive. And 30.5% reported their school does not offer sex education at all.

⁵ “Have any of your history classes ever had a lesson, unit, or chapter on LGBTQ+ history?”

⁶ Geographic regions reflect official Census Regions and Divisions, as described in “Census Regions and Divisions' of the United States,” available at https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf

⁷ Lindsay A. Babiss and James E. Gangwisch, “Sports participation as a protective factor against depression and suicidal ideation in adolescents as mediated by self-esteem and social support,” Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics 30 (5) (2009): 376–384; Kathleen E. Miller and Joseph H. Hoffman, “Mental Well-Being and Sport-Related Identities in College Students,” Sociology of Sports Journal 26 (2) (2009): 335–356; Michael J. Panza and others, “Adolescent Sport Participation and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Sports & Exercise Psychology (2020), available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32438339/; Emily Pluhar and others, “Team Sport Athletes May Be Less Likely To Suffer Anxiety or Depression than Individual Sport Athletes,” Journal of Sports Science & Medicine 18 (3) (2019): 490–496.

⁸ Carly B. Slutzky and Sandra D. Simpkins, “The link between children’s sport participation and self-esteem: Exploring the mediating role of sport self-concept,” Psychology of Sport and Exercise 10 (3) (2009): 381–389; Scott L. Zuckerman and others, “The behavioral, psychological and social impacts of team sports: a systematic review and meta-analysis,” The Physician and Sports Medicine (2020), available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33196337/

⁹ Burns and others, “Sports Participation Correlates With Academic Achievement”; Susan Rankin and others, “The Influence of Climate on the Academic and Athletic Success of Student-Athletes: Results from a Multi-Institutional National Study,” Journal of Higher Education 87 (5) (2016): 701–730; Dara Shifrer and others, “College-Going Benefits of High School Sports Participation: Race and Gender Differences over Three Decades,” Youth & Society 47 (3) (2015): 295–318.

¹⁰ Andrew Martinez and others, “Involvement in extracurricular activities: Identifying differences in perceptions of school climate,” Educational and Developmental Psychologist 33(1)(2016): 70-85 https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1017/edp.2016.7 ; Eve Oberle and others, “Benefits of extracurricular participation in early adolescence: Associations with peer belonging and mental health,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38(2019): 2255-2270. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01110-2

¹¹ Nacy Darling and others, “Participation in school-based extracurricular activities and adolescent adjustment,” Journal of Leisure Research, 37(1)(2005): 51-76. Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2005.11950040; Misha D. Haghighat and Casey A. Knifsend, “The longitudinal influence of 10th grade extracurricular activity involvement: Implications for 12th grade academic practices and future educational attainment,” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 48(2019): 609-619. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0947-x

¹² Andrew Martinez and others, “Involvement in Extracurricular Activities: Identifying Differences in Perceptions of School Climate,” The Educational and Developmental Psychologist 33 (1) (2016): 70–84; Benjamin Oosterhoff and others, “Activity-specific pathways among duration of organized activity involvement, social support, and adolescent well-being: Findings from a nationally representative sample,” Journal of Adolescence 60 (2017): 83–93.

¹³ ”School Connectedness,” (Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control, Division of Population Health, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2022) available at: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/school_connectedness.htm

¹⁴ Shannon L. Michael and others, ”Dietary and physical activity behaviors in 2021 and changes from 2019 to 2021 among high school students – Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2021,” MMWR 72(1)(2023):75-83. Available at https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/su/su7201a9.htm?s_cid=su7201a9_w

¹⁵ Three states had bathroom bans as of year-end 2022: Tennessee, Oklahoma, and Alabama

¹⁶ 18 states had transgender and gender-expansive sports bans as of year-end 2022: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.

¹⁷ Feeling unsafe defined as reporting “never” or “rarely” (vs. “sometimes”, “usually”, or “always”) feeling safe in at least one of the following settings “while at school”: classrooms; bathrooms; locker rooms; hallways and stairwells; school library; cafeteria; school grounds; getting to /from school; and/or on the school bus;

¹⁸ Youth reported the frequency they were ”teased, bullied, or treated badly by other students at your school” in the prior year because of specific characteristics (e.g. ”because of your sexual identity”). Respondents were considered to have experienced this if they reported it occurring ”sometimes,” ”often,” or ”very often” (as opposed to ”rarely” or ”never”) for at least one of the reasons specified (”body weight”; ”gender”; ”race/ethnicity”; ”sexual identity”; ”religion”; ”disability”; ”because I am an immigrant to the US”; ”how masculine or feminine I am.”)

¹⁹ Includes those who stated they were categorized as having been victimized due to their “gender” or “how masculine or feminine I am” (gender expression)

²⁰ The question prompt(s) asked “in the last 30 days, how often did the following happen to you in person at school?” and respondents could answer “Never” ; “1 or 2 times”; “3 or 4 times”; “5 or 6 times”; or “7 or more times” for four different forms of bullying:

• Other students called me names
  
• Other students made fun of me
• Other students picked on me
• I got hit and pushed by other students.

A respondent was considered to have been bullied if they reported that any of the items occurred at any frequency other than “never.”

²¹ For example: Choukas-Bradley, S., Thoma, B.C. (2022). Mental Health Among LGBT Youth. In: VanderLaan, D.P., Wong, W.I. (eds) Gender and Sexuality Development. Focus on Sexuality Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84273-4_18; Stephen T. Russel and Jessica T. Fish, ”Mental Health in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Youth,” Annual Reviews in Clinical Psychology 12(2016):465-487. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4887282/

²² Screening positive for depression is based on the PHQ-2, a 2-question screening tool which assesses frequency, over prior two weeks, of being

• ”bothered by the following problems”
  
• “little interest or pleasure in doing things”
  
• “feeling down, depressed, or hopeless”

Screening positive for anxiety is based on the GAD-2, a 2-question screening tool which assesses frequency, over prior two weeks, of being

• ”bothered by the following problems”
• “feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge”
• “not being able to stop or control worrying”

Screening positive for severe psychological distress is based on the PHQ-4, a 4-questions screening tool which combines the question prompts from the PHQ-2 screening tool for depression, and GAD-4 screening tool for anxiety (see above). Scores are categorized into 4 categories: none, mild, moderate, or severe psychological distress.

Ability to manage stress over past 30 days is based on response to the question ”On a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being ineffective and 10 being effective, how would you rate your ability to manage stress in the past 30 days?” Those who answered 4 or lower were categorized as having fair or poor ability to manage stress.

²³ Restricted to respondents in grades 10 or higher

²⁴ Defined as ”strongly” or ”somewhat” agreeing to the statement ”My LGBTQ+ identity will negatively affect my future college and higher education opportunities.”

HRC Foundation

The HRC Foundation — a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization — envisions a world where all LGBTQ+ people can participate fully in the systems that shape our daily lives. Through public education, research, and policy and practice change, the Foundation’s impact can be felt in schools, on factory floors and corporate suites, and in places of worship. It touches LGBTQ+ lives from childhood through end-of-life, people of all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, gender identities, abilities and religious beliefs, in big cities and small towns, in the United States and across the globe.

Youth Well-Being

The HRC Foundation's Youth Well-Being Program is dedicated to improving the lived experience of LGBTQ+ youth in everyday institutions of daily life--families, schools, after-school enrichment programs, community centers, health and wellness programs, child welfare, and other systems of care. The Youth Well-Being Program includes the Time to THRIVE conferences, Project THRIVE, the Youth Ambassador program, the Parents for Transgender Equality Council and a portfolio of training and educational resources to help youth-serving professionals promote the overall well-being of LGBTQ+ youth.

The Public Education & Research Program

The HRC Foundation’s Public Education & Research Program spearheads a wide variety of LGBTQ+ advocacy and outreach campaigns, working to ensure that the HRC Foundation’s resources and programs are timely, impactful and inclusive. In addition to publishing resource guides, informational materials and reports, the team conducts original quantitative and qualitative research exploring the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ people. The program also collaborates with experts and provides guidance to other HRC initiatives in support of efforts to advance LGBTQ+ equality and well-being.

Welcoming Schools

HRC Foundation’s Welcoming Schools (https://welcomingschools.org) is the most comprehensive bias-based bullying prevention program in the nation to provide LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive professional development training, lesson plans, booklists and resources specifically designed for educators and youth-serving professionals. Our program uses an intersectional, anti-racist lens dedicated to actionable policies and practices. We uplift school communities with critical tools to embrace family diversity, create LGBTQ+ and gender inclusive schools, prevent bias-based bullying, and support transgender and non-binary students.

University of Connecticut Research team:

Dr. Ryan Watson, Associate Professor, University of Connecticut

Dr. Ryan Watson is an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut and was the lead researcher who ran both the 2017 and 2022 iterations of the LGBTQ+ Youth Survey, as well as co-led the 2018 LGBTQ+ Youth Report which utilized data from the 2017 survey. His program of research is focused on reducing health disparities among sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth and young adults. Motivated by the urgent need to reduce the inequities in health for vulnerable populations, he has focused his scholarship on SGM youth and young adults, their relationships within family and school contexts, and their health experiences. Collaborating with a prolific team of scholars, he has been awarded over a million dollars in federal funding and published more than 125 peer-reviewed papers in the spirit of better understanding the mechanisms that drive well-documented injustices in health, school, and community experiences for SGM individuals.

Report authors:

Shoshana K. Goldberg, PhD MPH, Director of Public Education & Research, HRC Foundation

Shoshana K. Goldberg is the Director of Public Education & Research at the HRC Foundation. In her role, she oversees research projects that use quantitative and qualitative data to better understand the lived experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals in all aspects and dimensions of daily life, as well as public education products that aim to educate and inform advocates, policy makers and the general public.

Prior to joining to HRC, Goldberg held both research and academic positions in the fields of LGBTQ+ health and policy, working with organizations such as The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Strength in Numbers Consulting Group. Through her prior work, she has co-authored numerous academic articles, book chapters and research briefs, gaining expertise in the use of population-based data to understand the demographics of the LGBTQ+ population, as well as how existing social, structural and political factors contribute to vulnerabilities, marginalization and health disparities faced by the LGBTQ+ community.

Goldberg holds a Master’s of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health, and a Ph.D. in Maternal and Child Health and Epidemiology, both earned from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She is currently based in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Ted Lewis, MEd, Director of Youth and Family Programs

Ted Lewis, MEd, serves as the director of Youth & Family Programs in HRC’s Foundation. In this role, they work with the All Children-All Families program, HRC Foundation’s LGBTQ+ advocacy program within child welfare and social services systems, and the Youth Well-Being program, which is dedicated to improving the lived experience of LGBTQ+ youth in everyday institutions of daily life.

Ted brought nearly two decades of experience to their role at HRC. Prior to this role, Ted served as the executive director of Side by Side, a Richmond-based LGBTQ+ youth organization and was the founding LGBTQ+ staff position at UNC Charlotte and the University of Richmond. Ted has also consulted with Fortune 500 companies, K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and nonprofit organizations on LGBTQ+ inclusion. They hold a Master’s of Education from the University of South Carolina.

Ellen Kahn, Senior Director, Programs and Partnerships

Ellen Kahn is the senior director, programs and partnerships at the Human Rights Campaign. Since joining HRC in 2005, Kahn has provided vision and deep expertise in shaping public education and advocacy efforts on behalf of LGBTQ youth and families. Kahn oversees a portfolio of highly successful programs and initiatives that advance LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices in key institutions of daily life; All Children—All Families; Welcoming Schools; the HBCU Program, Health and Aging, and Youth Well-Being, which includes HRC’s Time to Thrive summits and the Project THRIVE campaign. Kahn is the staff lead for the Parents for Transgender Equality and brings high level thought leadership to HRC’s work to protect transgender youth at home, at school and in the public square.

Prior to joining HRC, Kahn spent 12 years at the Whitman-Walker Health in various roles; director of the Lesbian Services Program, associate director of LGBTQ Health Promotion, and as supervisor of a behavioral health program for people with living with HIV. While at Whitman-Walker Health, Kahn established “Choosing Children,” a robust program for LGBTQ+ parents and prospective parents, including “Maybe Baby” groups, an annual “Parenting Day,” and a range of support groups for LGBTQ+ parents.

Kahn was a founding board member of Rainbow Families DC, the capital area’s support and education organization for LGBTQ+-headed families. She has facilitated “Maybe Baby” groups for over 15 years and consults with dozens of prospective LGBTQ parents each year. Kahn received her B.S. from Temple University and her M.S.S. from the Bryn Mawr College School of Social Work and Social Research.