Top takeaways
A December 2025 study by Concerned Women for America found that nearly half of Netflix’s G- and TV-Y7-rated children’s shows contain LGBT content, supporting Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s claims that children are being exposed to sensitive and objectionable material.
Hawley raised the issue during a Feb. 3 Senate hearing on a proposed Netflix-Warner Bros. merger, saying he is concerned that the merger would increase the platform’s ability to promote a transgender narrative to children worldwide.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos rejected the accusation, saying Netflix has no political agenda. He disputed Hawley’s data and pointed parents to filtering and parental-control tools that can protect children from objectionable content.
CWA argued the growth of LGBT characters in children’s media — especially in reboots and newer seasons — may create a “closed feedback loop” driving higher LGBT identity among Gen Z.
More details
A recent study has corroborated Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s claim that nearly half of children’s shows on Netflix contain transgender ideology, a concern he raised during a Senate hearing on a proposed Netflix-Warner Bros. merger that he said would vastly expand Netflix’s reach to children across the world.
Questioning Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos during the Feb. 3 hearing, Hawley asked why so many shows promote a transgender agenda and whether Netflix is advocating for or committing to an LGBT ideology.
Sarandos answered that Netflix does not have a political agenda and called Hawley’s claim “inaccurate,” adding that he did not “have any idea” where Hawley’s numbers came from.
However, a December 2025 study by Concerned Women for America (CWA) found that 41% of Netflix’s G-rated series and 41% of shows rated for children ages 7 and older (TV-Y7) contain LGBT content. Taken together, 33% of shows across all age categories — TV-G, TV-Y, and TV-Y7 — had LGBT characters, themes, storylines, or messaging, according to CWA.
Content rated for very young viewers had the lowest levels of LGBT content and focused more on educational material, but 21% of shows in that category still contained LGBT themes, including transgender, lesbian, or nonbinary characters. CWA also found that the reboots of older series and more recent seasons of long-running shows “frequently introduced LGBTQ characters where none existed before.”
CWA stated in a press release, “Less than 10% of the overall population identifies as gay, trans or nonbinary, but the numbers are significantly higher for Gen Z, and continue to trend upward: roughly 11% in 2017 to over 20% in 2023, mirroring the surge in LGBTQ content in children’s media — particularly on Netflix — that came online during Gen Z’s formative years.”
According to CWA, the trend suggests “the possibility of a closed feedback loop, with the media children consume both reflecting and then reinforcing their embrace of LGBTQ+ identity.”
In the hearing, Sarandos said Netflix has millions of hours of content for a wide variety of tastes, pointed to the platform’s filtering tools as a way to prevent children from encountering content parents deem objectionable, and later questioned Hawley’s “personal experience” with encountering LGBT content on Netflix.
Hawley replied that he has personally found that his children cannot watch anything on Netflix without him and his wife screening it first because he does not have confidence in the content on the platform. He objected to his children “being pushed” an LGBT agenda before he had the opportunity to discuss those themes with them.
“On behalf of parents around the country,” he said, “it offends me that Netflix is pushing this content at parents in what seems to be a very coordinated, thought-through, planned-out agenda, in a way that frankly I think undermines parents.”
Hawley concluded, “My concern is that you don’t share my values or those of many other American parents and you want the United States government to allow you to become one of the largest, if not the largest, streaming monopolist in the world.”