More people in the United States now identify as LGBTQ+, according to a Gallup poll, at 7.6% of adults, up from 5.6% four years ago, and 3.5% in 2012, Gallup's first year of measuring sexual orientation and transgender identity.
Generation Z, born 1997-2012, and millennials, 1981-96, are far more likely than those in older generations to identify as LGBTQ+, Gallup observed.
"Overall, each younger generation is about twice as likely as the generation that preceded it to identify as LGBTQ+," Gallup noted.
More than one in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ+, as do nearly one in 10 millennials. The percentage drops to less than 5% of Generation X, 1965-80, 2% of baby boomers, 1946-64, and 1% of the Silent Generation, 1946-earlier.
Gallup asked 12,000-plus respondents whether they identify as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something else. Overall, 85.6% say they are straight or heterosexual, 7.6% identify with one or more LGBTQ+ groups, and 6.8% declined to respond.
Bisexuality is the most common LGBTQ+ status among Generation Z, millennials, and Generation X, according to the survey results. 15% of all Generation Z adults — representing more than two-thirds of those with an LGBTQ+ identification — are bisexual.
In the older generations, LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely, or equally as likely, to say they are gay or lesbian than bisexual, Gallup notes.
Women are nearly twice as likely as men to identify as LGBTQ+, 8.5%, versus 4.7%. Bisexuality is the most common form of LGBTQ+ identification among women, while men are equally likely to identify as bisexual or gay.
Close to three in 10 Gen Z women, 28.5%, identify as LGBTQ+, compared with 10.6% of Gen Z men. Among millennials, 12.4% of women and 5.4% of men have an LGBTQ+ identification.
More than one in five Gen Z women identify as bisexual, as do 9% of millennial women. Gen Z men are more likely to identify as bisexual than as gay, while roughly equal proportions of millennial men identify as bisexual or gay. Older generations of LGBTQ+ men are most likely to identify as gay.
"The generational differences and trends point to higher rates of LGBTQ+ identification, nationally, in the future. If current trends continue, it is likely that the proportion of LGBTQ+ identifiers will exceed 10% of U.S. adults at some point within the next three decades," Gallup concluded.
Results for the poll were based on telephone interviews conducted in 2023, with combined random samples totaling 12,145 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level.
Peter Malbin ✉
Peter Malbin, a Newsmax writer, covers news and politics. He has 30 years of news experience, including for the New York Times, New York Post and Newsweek.com.
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