More Americans identifying as LGBTQ+

Stock photo of a crowd waving LGBTQ rainbow flags by Inkdrop via Canva

By Kristen Rogers, CNN

(CNN) — The proportion of American adults who identify as LGBTQ+ has risen to 9.3% of the population, according to a Gallup Poll released Thursday.

The finding represents an increase of more than 1 percentage point from 2023’s estimate. The proportion of the population identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or non-heterosexual has nearly doubled since 2020 and has jumped from 3.5% since 2012, when it was first measured by Gallup, an analytics and advisory company based in Washington, DC.

“If there is one thing that people should take away from these new findings, it is this: LGBTQ+ people have always been here, and we will continue to be here, no matter what laws or policies attempt to erase us,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, via email.

The boost has a lot to do with young people, who have been much more likely than older generations to identify as something other than heterosexual, Gallup said.

“More than one in five Gen Z adults — those born between 1997 and 2006, who were between the ages of 18 and 27 in 2024 — identify as LGBTQ+,” according to Gallup’s report. “Each older generation of adults, from millennials to the Silent Generation, has successively lower rates of identification, down to 1.8% among the oldest Americans, those born before 1946.”

The findings are based on phone interviews conducted in 2024 with more than 14,100 adults in the United States. Overall, 85.7% of respondents said they were straight, whereas 5.2% were bisexual, 2% were gay, 1.4% were lesbian and 1.3% were transgender, the pollsters found. Just under 1% identified as another LGBTQ+ identity, such as pansexual, asexual or queer. Five percent of respondents declined to answer.

Among the 899 LGBTQ+ participants from the overall sample, 56% reported being bisexual, 21% said they were gay, 15% identified themselves as lesbian, 14% reported being transgender and 6% said they were “something else.” (These figures total more than 100% due to Gallup allowing participants to report more than one identity. For example, a person can be transgender and pansexual.) More than half of Generation Z said they were bisexual.

“Those of us who have identified for a long time as LGBTQ+ are always encouraged … when younger generations find the courage to live their truths,” Dr. Kaila Adia Story, the Audre Lorde Endowed Chair in Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality Studies at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, said via email.

How the findings differ by demographics

Gallup also found that LGBTQ+ identification differs by gender, location and political affiliation.

Ten percent of women versus 6% of men are LGBTQ+, and that difference is markedly more striking among younger generations — 31% of women versus 12% of men in Gen Z, and 18% of women versus 9% of men among millennials.

The discrepancies may be partly because “dominant notions of masculinity are still intimately tied to being heterosexual,” Dr. Brandon Robinson, chair and associate professor in the department of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California, Riverside, said via email. “Dominant notions of masculinity do not often allow for sexual fluidity or exploring one’s sexuality. Moreover, bisexual men are still often stigmatized as being gay, delegitimizing their bisexual identity.”

Identifying as LGBTQ+ is also more common in cities and suburbs compared with rural areas, and among Democrats and independents versus Republicans, according to the poll. Gallup didn’t observe, however, any differences based on education since both college graduates and nongraduates were equally likely to identify as LGBTQ+, it said.

The findings don’t indicate that queer and transgender people are new, Black said.

People of LGBTQ+ identities have always existed, including trans people, said Dr. Lexx Brown-James, a licensed marriage and family therapist and CEO of the Institute for Sexuality & Intimacy, via email.

“We have the Muxes of Mexico, the Mahu of Polynesia, the Hijras of South Asia, the Chibados of Angola, not to mention the many 2-Spirit peoples of various Indigenous peoples and so many more,” Brown-James said.

For these reasons, Robinson said, people should see the results as a good thing.

“This trend is supported by the fact that each later generation is more likely to identify as LGBTQ than previous generations, showing how society is changing around gender and sexuality,” Robinson added.

Experts said they hope the poll results remind everyone that LGBTQ+ people are friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors, teammates and more. They also noted that while there has been societal and political progress in the past, current anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is taking a toll on the community.

There are currently 390 bills targeting LGBTQ+ rightsin the United States.

“Regardless of a person’s politics, I hope this poll helps lawmakers and leaders across the U.S. see LGBTQ+ people for who we are: people who exist and belong in every community, in every corner of this country,” Black said. “We just want to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect, like anyone else.”

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