Positive attitudes towards homosexuality fall sharply among adolescents in the Netherlands
The seventh national report from HBSC Netherlands finds that positive attitudes towards homosexuality among secondary-school students have fallen back to a level comparable with 2009, alongside a continued decline in how students experience school.
HBSC Netherlands published its 2025 national report on 21 September 2026. The report draws on the 2025 Dutch HBSC survey of 1,510 students in the final year of primary education and 5,541 students in secondary education, carried out by Utrecht University and the Trimbos Institute and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport.
Between 2021 and 2025, the share of boys in secondary education with a positive attitude towards homosexuality almost halved, from 40% to 22%. Among girls in secondary education it fell from 78% to 51%, and among girls in primary education from 73% to 52%. The share of secondary-school students who think gay or lesbian students at their school can be open about their sexual orientation fell from 60% to 45%.
These questions have been asked in the Dutch survey since 2009. Until 2021, positive attitudes were stable among boys and rising among girls, which makes the 2025 figures a clear break with the earlier trend.
“Girls have a more positive attitude towards homosexuality than boys, but this percentage also decreased sharply among girls,” said Gonneke Stevens, lead researcher and Professor of Adolescent Health and Wellbeing at Utrecht University.
The authors report that the decline is present among students both with and without a migration background, and that the proportion of students with a migration background in the sample was similar in 2025 and 2021. They also note that students did not become markedly more negative about physical intimacy in general, and that the change concerns same-sex intimacy specifically.
The report sets out other findings across school experience, mental health, social media, substance use, diet and physical activity. Enjoyment of school among secondary-school students has declined steadily since 2013. Girls’ mental health has not recovered since the 2021 survey, with emotional problems rising from 29% in 2017 to 43% in 2025. Alcohol use was lower than in 2021, daily fruit consumption among primary-school students reached its highest level since 2001, and girls smoked and vaped more often than boys for the first time.
Because data collection for the 2025/26 HBSC survey is still under way in other countries, the report does not yet place the Dutch findings in international perspective. The team intends to do so once the international data are available.
