More than doubling since 2012, the number of adults in the US who identify as non-heterosexual has been revealed by a Gallup poll.
U.S. individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ have grown to about 8% of the total population, with the youngest members making up the largest demographic.
Approximately twice as many members of each successive younger generation (Gen Z through millennials) identify as LGBTQ+ than members of an earlier generation.
More and more people in the United States are coming out as non-heterosexual, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or something else entirely. This number has been pushed to eight percent in recent years. Though just 3.5% of U.S. adults identified as LGBTQ in 2012, that number rose to 5.6% in 2020. The percentage has increased to 7.6% thus far this year, with 57.3% of the LGBTQ population identifying as bisexual and approximately 1% of the population identifying as gay, lesbian, or transgender.
According to Brandon Robinson, an associate professor and chair of the gender and sexuality studies department at the University of California, Riverside, the increasing numbers indicate that society is more accepting and supportive of LGBTQ+ individuals.
More than 12,000 Americans in a 2023 telephone poll were asked whether they identify as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something else.
The error margin ranges from -1% to +1%.
Fewer than one percent identified as transgender, with two percent identifying as pansexual and one percent as asexual in the same category.
Rising from 5.6% in 2020 to 7.1% in 2021, the most significant percentage gain was among adults identifying as non-heterosexual in the United States. Among the generations that came of age between 1997 and 2012, 22.3% identify as LGBTQ, making Generation Z the most prevalent, while Millennials come in second, with 9.8%.
