More American adults than ever before identify as LGBTQ, according to a Gallup poll released on Thursday, with the number doubling–yes, doubling–over the past decade.
Using data aggregated over the past year, from interviews with over 12,000 respondents, Gallup found that 7.1 percent of U.S. adults reported identifying as something other than heterosexual.
The analytics company began measuring in 2012, at which time it found just 3.5 percent responding that they considered themselves to be members of the LGBTQ community.
The increase is largely due to members of Generation Z who have reached adulthood replacing older generations, who are more likely to identify as cisgender and heterosexual.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Nearly 21 percent of Gen Z Americans who were at least 18 years-old as of last year identify as LGBTQ. That’s nearly twice as many as millennials who do, at 10.5 percent, and about five times as many as Generation X, coming in at 4.2 percent. Meanwhile, just 2.6 percent of baby boomers identify as LGBTQ, and 0.8 percent of traditionalists.
Related: 30 amazing tweets by LGBTQ people about their woke grandmas
Digging even further into the numbers, Gen Z and millennials have been increasingly identifying as LGBTQ, with just 5.8 percent of millennials self-describing as such in 2012, and 7.8 percent of Gen Z in 2017.
Conversely, older generations have remained relatively stable. Gallup noted that once more members of Gen Z reach adulthood the overall percentage of LGBTQ American adults is likely to rise.
Among those identifying as LGBTQ, bisexual adults compromise the largest group, at 57 percent, translating to 4 percent of U.S. adults overall.
Additionally, 21 percent of LGBTQ Americans surveyed said they are gay, 14 percent lesbian, 10 percent transgender, and another 4 percent described themselves as something else, including queer and same-gender-loving.
The number of Americans identifying as bisexual is especially pronounced among the poll’s youngest cohort, with 15 percent of Gen Z adults reporting they are bi.
Women of all generations are more likely to identify as bisexual than men, at 6 percent versus 2 percent of men. Women were also more likely to identify as bisexual than lesbian, at just 1.9 percent, whereas men were more likely to identify as gay, at 2.5 percent.
Related: Survey finds a surprising number of straight men have some pretty gay tendencies
Gallup notes the increase in adults identifying as LGBTQ coincides with greater acceptance of the community, with record numbers of Americans supporting same-sex marriage and nondiscrimination protections, including most Republicans.
Furthermore, most Americans are also in support of transgender servicemembers, although that number has dropped, from 71 percent in 2019 to 66 percent in 2021, and most still say they believes trans athletes should be made to play only on teams matching their gender assigned at birth.
The trend in identification is expected to continue upward, with Gallup arguing, “With one in 10 millennials and one in five Gen Z members identifying as LGBT, the proportion of LGBT Americans should exceed 10 percent in the near future.”
Cam
This is why Trump and Republicans were so desperate to remove LGBTQ related questions from the census.
johncp56
Yes spot on but they had no idea there are far more good people then them,
Ronbo
I see our own Miss Cleo is reading minds again. Someone can (and should) explain to our own short-bus candidate that they can’t read minds. They can say ‘it’s likely’ or even, ‘it seems” but not “why”. One can state the “why” which exists in their OWN mind; but, that of course, must first pass cognition (which isn’t guaranteed) .
According to Snopes, “an archived fact sheet from the most recent census taken in the United States (2010) specifically noted that questions about “sexual orientation or gender identity” were not then part of the census.” Orientation and gender questions have never been included in the census, and proposals to include them were never adopted or included – the decision was made prior to tRump’s election! This is just a deceptive attack based upon kookie mind reading and paranoia.
Many don’t know and can’t explain the WHY of what THEY do. For example, we all can read and recognize opinions which we don’t agree. Right? Certain people insist that ONLY they can express opinions and insist that only their opinion is valid. If they don’t like opinions, paranoia will claim that one person is actually posting as 40+ people at Queerty!
What kind of childhood creates such ego and arrogance and entitlement? It sounds trumpish, doesn’t it? This is not fighting fire with fire, it’s more fighting stupid lies with more stupid lies.
BarryM
You’re right.
Cam
LOL!!!!
I love it, I exposed this screeame as another troll screename and you revert right back to type. Not only desperately trying to lie and pretend that Republicans weren’t trying to get LGBTQ questions taken off the census, but also switching screenames to come in and back up your own comment.
It’s almost as if you were TRYING to be terrible at trolling, but then again, Russia is broke and just can’t afford the smart ones anymore.
Den
Interesting how “ronbo” spent 4 paragraphs saying essentially nothing at all, and another right wing hetero/faker troll immediately chimes in to agree with him (or her…whatever). Interesting also to note that “ronbo” oddly believes that the 2010 census was the most recent, when the results of the 2020 census were released last summer! And though it did not ask about sexual orientation, it DID allow identification of same sex marriages and cohabiting same sex couples. Funny how right wingers never really seem fully connected with reality!
There are clearly problems with the statistics cited here, not the least of which is what specifically the questions were, and how being part of the “queer community” was or was not defined. What is telling is that even now, the percentage of homosexual men noted as part of the population was 2.5%, or what it seems to have been noted as in most surveys over the past 20 years.
Including the number of trans people in a survey like this “muddies the waters”, in that it tells us nothing about whether they are gay straight, bi or asexual. While inclusion in political struggles is important, they have nothing whatsoever to do with the sexual preference makeup of the population beyond what their stated sexual preference is. There is also the unfortunate overly broad use of “queer” as a self-definition, taken it seems by almost anybody who desires to see themselves as outside the heterosexuals’ norm whether they actually are or not. So straight men might define as queer if they have a lingerie fetish despite being ultimately heterosexual and thus not at all queer in the 100 year old sense of the word.
Ronbo
What I did say is that I went to a fact-checking site to find that Cam is using false information to enhance his paranoid thoughts.
When I present fact-checked thoughts, it’s not “right-wing”; it’s the truth. Please back up your accusations or accept that you hate-read my comments and try to create paranoia. Yes, people dislike us; but, we don’t need to wallow in what a tiny group of people think.
Fighting lies with more lies is not how you arrive at the truth.
Ronbo
What I did say is that I went to a fact-checking site, Snopes, to find that Cam is using false information to enhance his paranoid thoughts.
When I present fact-checked thoughts, it’s not “right-wing”; it’s the truth. Please back up your accusations or accept that you hate-read my comments and try to create paranoia. Yes, people dislike us; but, we don’t need to wallow in what a tiny group of people think.
Fighting lies with more lies is not how you arrive at the truth.
Ronbo
What I did say is that I went to a fact-checking site, Snopes, to find that Cam is using false information to enhance his paranoid thoughts throughout the community.
When I present fact-checked thoughts, it’s not “right-wing”; it’s the truth. Please back up your accusations or accept that you hate-read my comments and try to create paranoia. Yes, people dislike us; but, we don’t need to wallow in what a tiny group of people think.
Fighting lies with more lies is not how you arrive at the truth. The truth is not “right-wing”.
Ronbo
What I did say is that I went to a fact-checking site, Snopes, to find that Cam is using false information to enhance his paranoid thoughts throughout the community. And because I fact-check your comments, I’m “Russian”?!?
When I present fact-checked thoughts, it’s not “right-wing”; it’s the truth. Please back up your accusations or accept that you hate-read my comments and try to create paranoia. Yes, people dislike us; but, we don’t need to wallow in what a tiny group of people think.
Fighting lies with more lies is not how you arrive at the truth. The truth is not “right-wing”.
Ronbo
Cam, simply repeating a lie doesn’t make it true. Where did you expose anything? Has anyone seen Cam exposing people – not just making accusations?
Den
You may, perhaps, have “gone to a fact checking site” but you did not present a single fact in your response to Cam (repeated, oddly, 4 times as if you have little notion how to actually use a computer. All your response to Cam does is incorrectly refer to an old census, and inappropriately capitalize a bunch of words in a huge word salad with rather greasy dressing.
Kangol2
This beautiful LGBTQ reality in the US is why we’re seeing yet another wave of anti-gay/anti-LGBTQ legislation from the GOP in state legislatures all over the country, and why the right-wing judiciary wants to use “religious freedom” as a way of allowing discrimination against LGBTQ people. And don’t forget, the fanatic behind Texas’s anti-abortion law also has his sights on same-sex marriage and other protections for LGBTQ people!
Ronbo
Who? Sincerely, I’m searching for the truth and would like to know the facts. Back in 2015 Texas I recall that Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that a marriage license granted to two women Thursday is void, the day after the state’s first same-sex couple .was granted the right to wed.
Who is the “fanatic” today? I hate to see people pushing paranoia as it creates fear and anger.
BarryM
Ronbo:
You’re right.
Cam
@Ronbo
The hilarious thing is, the right wing troll account acts like nobody else watches the news. Sweetie, we aren’t FOX News viewers, you can’t just lie and claim Republicans haven’t been attacking LGBTQ people and be believed. But it’s adorable you keep trying.
@BarryM wow, the right wing troll has gotten so lazy, it doesn’t even bother to switch up the screenames it uses to come in and support it’s own comments. Just switches over to BarryM and posts under all of it’s own comments. You aren’t just a bad troll, you’re lazy.
Ronbo
Who? Please fact-check your facts. An opinion based upon false information is false. If there is someone in Texas doing this, please, Please, PLEASE let us know who so that we can address this before it gets rolling.
Kangol2
To Ronbo and BarryM/JamesHart, I’m talking about JONATHAN MITCHELL. He is the right-wing, former Texas Solicitor General and Federalist Society member who also is a key architect of the Texas anti-abortion law and has criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Texas in a brief filed in the summer of 2021.
From the GuardianUK: “Mitchell and co-counsel Adam Mortara, an anti-abortion activist and lawyer who clerked for the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, *said such a decision could open the door for other ‘lawless’ rights and protections to be reversed, including the right to have gay sex and the right to same-sex marriage.”*”
I don’t think you’re a right-wing extremist, Ronbo, so I’d just ask you to take people like Mitchell very seriously.
Ronbo
According to Snopes, “Many articles about controversy pertaining to LGBT households and the 2020 Census suggested President Trump or his administration had elided or removed LGBT-related questions from the census, but such questions were not there in the first place, and we found no information indicating that the executive branch was exerting influence over U.S. Census operations.”
Let’s put down the paranoic pitchforks and instead address the likely tRump felonies of manipulating property values to reduce taxes and get loans. A felon can’t run for the presidency.
BarryM
Once again, you hit the nail on its head.
Cam
Once again, right wing troll @Ronbo tries to deflect from the simple fact that Republicans tried to remove the question about LGBTQ people from the census because they want to hide our existence.
And once again, it switched to it’s other screename @BarryM to back up it’s own comment.
Ronbo
But Cam, Snopes checked out this exact question and found that the census questions were set BEFORE tRump was in office. Lying can excite a mob; but, we aren’t a mob. The LGBTQ community is diverse and intelligent.
cuteguy
Thank goodness for the younger generation. Gen X, baby boomers and the rest for the fossil generation will hopefully die out sooner rather than later. And hopefully another wave of the covid variant will do off with MAGA losers. LGBTQ+ coming out stories are becoming less and less necessary bc of acceptance. Next stop, the elimination of Faux News.
Heywood Jablowme
The leading cause of death for YOUR generation is getting into a car crash while texting, getting run over while texting, or stepping into an open manhole (personhole) while texting. Be careful, cuteguy!
SamB
This is ridiculous. The younger generations think they’re so unique and special, it’s because they’ve never really had to work for anything. So now they’re so bored with having a good life they’re trying to make up conflicts… being gay is nothing anymore, so they’re making up genders and sexualities.
Tony
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. Just another now semi-acceptable way for the young-uns to rebel against conformity.
Heywood Jablowme
No, it’s mostly just honesty. Previous generations, when they experimented with same-sex stuff, tended to forget about it later – especially men. As Kinsey found out back in 1948, 37% of men reported having at least one s-s sexual incident (I’m going from memory but I think that’s the right figure). In the past, based on that, few would define themselves as bisexual or “heteroflexible” or anything other than heterosexual, but now they can and do. Sure there’s a little of what you say going on – LGBTQ is trendy now and never was in the past – but mostly it’s just honesty.
Cam
@SamB
Translation: The same old right wing troll has to attack the idea that LGBTQ people exist. But, lets look at it’s comment….The older generation had cheap college, and could pay for school by working as a waitress, bartender, etc… without needing loans. Meanwhile the younger generation has to take loans for skyrocketing college costs, then companies now try to get out of paying them by saying they have to do unpaid internships, and wages stayed stagnant for decades.
But the right wingers are desperately trying to claim that younger people are lazy and bored, rather than the fact that they see clearly the world that lazy Republican anti-Americans created.
@Tony, I see you at least created a new screename to come on and back up your own troll comment.
SamB
Heywood: Some good points, that’s fair. I still think too many people are just jumping on the bandwagon for the hell of it. Even with Kinsey’s study, just because a guy had one ss experience, doesn’t make him even remotely gay.
Cam
@SamB
Awwww, the right wing troll account pulls the old “Being LGBTQ is just trendy”.
That is the line that all the hateful bigots use…..claiming schools can’t mention that LGBTQ people exist because impressionable kids will “Turn Gay” if they hear about Queer people.
Thank you for exposing that you are not just a typical bigoted troll account, but that you post your information from the most hateful, old school bigotry out there.
As always, your troll game is sad and weak.
Heywood Jablowme
@Cam: Do you think the 21% figure is (roughly) accurate? Or do you think it’s lower, or higher?
Cam
@Heywood Jablowme
I love how the right wing troll account under different screenames always uses the same tactic.
Once I’ve blown up one of it’s comments, it will come in under another screename and asks some random question, on something I neer mentioned aimed at me. Then if I don’t answer it goes into some spiral screaming “WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION?!?!?!?”
Sweetie, I LOVE it when you make it so easy for everyone to spot your other screenames.
Heywood Jablowme
For SANE readers: If the 21% figure is too high, that would indicate at least a bit of “trendiness.” This is a point made by Donston and others here.
Leave it to mentally ill, snarling Cam (yet again violating the Queerty Comment Policy) to see something sinister about young heterosexuals calling themselves “queer” because they think it fits them better. And SamB (who’s not me) was upset in the other direction, seeing something sinister about the “bandwagon” itself. There’s nothing bad about this bandwagon.
But at least they aren’t calling themselves “heteroflexible”! That would probably give poor Cam a stroke.
Ronbo
I think poor Cam has already had a stroke. Cam claims to have exposed sock puppets – yet I know that is a lie – as do 40+ other persons who’ve been accused. Unstable minds often attack others for doing what they do.
I don’t know if Cam is sock-puppeting; but, his M.O. is apparent and established. And quite frankly, we learn more about people when they project their own thoughts onto others.
Heywood Jablowme
“Meanwhile, just 2.6 percent of baby boomers identify as LGBTQ, and 0.8 percent of traditionalists.”
What does “traditionalists” mean in this context? Is that supposed to be a generation?
SamB
The Gallup pole states that traditionalist generation are anyone questioned who was born before 1946.
Who knows how accurate this poll is, the only methodology Gallup provides is that it’s a “random” sample of 12, 416 over 50 states and DC, so divided by 51 that means that divided evenly that would mean that 243.45 per area. Since that’s not an even number I’m assuming it wasn’t evenly distributed.
More populous states like California and New York might be way over represented and they have a much different attitude of what being gay is.
And then there was this nonsense, “Some respondents identify with multiple sexual orientations or gender identities,” so who knows how that skewered the results.
GayEGO
My lifetime partner of 57 years, married 15 years in Massachusetts, have seen our civilization in America learn and evolve. Unfortunately there are those who don’t think for themselves and let religious bigots tell them who they should be. If it weren’t for science they would still believe the world is flat.
Den
Actually very few people ever believed the world was flat. The ancient Greeks even accurately measured its circumference. Those that believe it now always seem to be right wing Christian conspiracy theorists, whose world view is dependent on thinking Christian scripture is literal in all ways.
That said, you are absolutely correct. The right, especially the “religious right” and “values voters” need to see all forms of social progress as bad. Their world collapses if class distinctions, racial differences, gender roles and “traditional sexual morality” change in any way.
And (to respond to some other comments here) as much as a lot of the younger folks here wish to paint this as a generational difference, it is not. The most significant social and cultural advances of the latter 20th century were the result of the baby boomers they love to demonize and many of us remain progressive: while many 20 somethings in the high tech sector lean dangerously towards the fantasy world of the libertarians…the political version of sociopathy. And if you take a close look at the January 6th traitors, the attendees of Trump Rallies, those who engage in homophobic and transphobic violence, those who are revitalizing the Klan and militia movements etc, a disturbing number of those folks are men and women in their 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.
cubcmh
Good luck after we do. I’d love to be a fly on the wall to watch that shit show.
Old Flint
I happen to be a hetero boomer. I wonder if this finding really reflects a large number of people feeling free to live their lives freely or if the number really hasn’t changed specifically but people are now allowed to be who they are without risk of social ostracism, loss of employment or worse. In the 70’s my wife who is bisexual and I had many SS couples as friends but they rarely if ever disclosed it, even to us, out of a reasonable fear of public exposure. Today, our SS friends make no secret of their orientation and openly admit their sexuality. Is it because their are more people truly becoming LGBTQ or because now they face less risk? In other words, LGBTQ people have probably always been with us, just now they are safer to admit it and freely live their lives normally without a high risk of danger
My2CentsWorth
People are feeling freer to be out and honest about themselves. This may change after the 2024 re-election of Trump and the Republican control of both houses they will be able to implement a lot of bad laws and etc. fewer people will be inclined to be honest. During my life I have encountered many folks who were likely LGBTQ even some who married but were in the closet. I fear that the future will be more of the same, or even worse.
Donston
I doubt Trump is going to be re-elected. But I especially doubt everyone in the “queer spectrum” is suddenly gonna be frightened and run back in the closet because of a Republican president. That didn’t even happen with Trump’s first term. I’m also sure many people polled were likely Liberals. While overt “queers” are more likely to participate in polls like this in the first place.
The state of being “queer” has drastically changed over the past decade. It doesn’t matter who is in office. However, religious pressures/guilt, homophobia, transphobia, internalized phobias, hetero superiority, hetero relationship/commitment pressures, gay shame, toxic masculinity, masculine insecurities, mental health struggles- these things are still prevalent issues and will be no matter who’s in the office. And they’re things even many “out” people face or contend with.
Donston
These type of polls always have biases and agendas. So, you shouldn’t take these raw numbers that seriously. However, as I’ve said many times here, being in the queer spectrum is borderline pedestrian. I’d wager that at least 25% of people experience some degrees or variations of bisexuality, pansexuality, fluidity in their lifetime. And at least 30% of people are probably in the gender, sexual, affection, romantic attachment, emotional investment, relationship contentment, commitment ambition spectrum. Over one-third of the population could probably get away with calling themselves “queer”. That’s why we need to stop being so caught up in sex, identity, sociology, ego validation and start looking at each other as individuals.
inbama
Yes, it’s definitely hard to know what any of this means.
Other polls suggest that in spite of all the letters, identities, pronouns and body modifications, it looks like this generation of kids isn’t actually getting laid.
Donston
I would guess that the omnipresence of social media interaction and the easy access to pornography has led to less persistent sexual interactions. While despite the hype around “sexual freedom” and “open relationships”, based on polls it seems as if monogamy or borderline monogamy is more common in folks under 30 than in previous generations. However, these types of polls are hard to suss out because they depend on a very small percentage of people, because they tend to have own biases and agendas, and because people do lie or say things to be “cool” or to fit in with or be embraced by whoever.
However, I think accepting just how common it is to not be completely conventionally heterosexual in every way is important. Society accepting just how varied and personalized sexuality and preferences and struggles and psychology are is important. Understanding the vastness of the gender, sexual, affection, affirmation, romantic attachment, emotional investment, commitment spectrum is important. On the other hand, these types of polls can sometimes be used to promote homosexual shaming, hetero pressures, uplifting hetero superiority and commitment (“a lot of people are at least a bit ‘gay’. So, there’s no need for you to want to be with someone of your sex”). That is where we have to be careful. No matter if at least one-third of the population is probably “queer” in whatever ways and to whatever extent, this is still a hetero dominant world with a lot of ignorance, pressures, insecurities, shaming and f-ed up shit, including from queers.
IvanPH
I don’t think surveys like this could ever be accurate since these are not anonymous surveys so closeted folks would therefore identify as straight.
Moreover, a lot of women today who identify as “bisexual” are not really bisexual but straight women merely looking for attention.
LegionKeign
Cam, Ronbo, BarryM, Den, Samb, Donston, imbama => Same Person Multiple Personalities.
Heywood Jablowme
Hey, you left me out!
Cam created BarryM, yeah. Multiple screen names are a tactic he uses to steer the discussion into the brick wall of his monomania, multiple screen names!
SamB
Never compare me to Cam… or Den.
Den
There are so many people here mired in fantasy worlds. I am certainly not the same as Cam who has some good and progressive views but seems more and more to be quite unstable emotionally and intellectually (harping on the notion that everybody is a sock puppet of someone else). Get a grip folks! It is unbecoming for adults to be so unable to tell reality from fantasy.
I am progressive, but also dislike dogma (and the inability to differentiate between fact and conjecture) and those who cling to it regardless of their political bent.
inbama
I don’t see how Cam got on the list.
Everyone else is at least sane – some even able to express logical thoughts in complete sentences.
BTW, it’s “inbama” – as in currently living in Alabama.
I’m not a fan of the politics, but I’m well past the age where I need to live in the sex capital of the world, and it’s affordable.
Kangol2
Since this might get lost in the back in forth, specifically for Ronbo:
The person I was talking about above is JONATHAN MITCHELL. He is the right-wing, Federalist Society member who also is a key architect of the Texas anti-abortion law and has criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Texas in a brief filed in the summer of 2021.
From The Advocate: “The mastermind of the Texas abortion ban has invited the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn or at least severely undermine key LGBTQ+ rights decisions — the ones that struck down sodomy bans and established marriage equality.”
“Their brief refers to “court-invented rights to homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage” and says, “These ‘rights,’ like the right to abortion from Roe, are judicial concoctions, and there is no other source of law that can be invoked to salvage their existence.”
“The right to marry an opposite-sex spouse is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’; the right to marry a same-sex spouse obviously is not,” they write.
Also:
From the GuardianUK: ““Mitchell and co-counsel Adam Mortara, an anti-abortion activist and lawyer who clerked for the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, *said such a decision could open the door for other ‘lawless’ rights and protections to be reversed, including the right to have gay sex and the right to same-sex marriage.”*”
I don’t think you’re a right-wing extremist, Ronbo, so I’d just ask you to take people like Mitchell very seriously, and since you said you’d get on this, please let us know how you’re responding to an extremist, anti-gay fanatic like him and Adam Mortara.
lambchopp59
Whoo… this turned into a brawl so it seems.
Transitional Boom-Xer here saw a lot of this coming. Yes, we were the last generation to “afford” heavily state backed city college, but not without it’s challenges and many a night without roofs over our heads. We’re also those who have 100 percent consistently supported education and housing assistance, and get bashed from the boomers nowadays for being socialists. (Democratic socialists, absolutely. Not even close to how the RW defines us) What frankly has me totally thrown is any of the younger generations falling in line, unquestioningly with RW corporatist agendas, especially the bullshit mountain from the likes of Faux Noise that is so goddamn easy to recognize as partisan drivel, and yet… there are young Log Cabin dipshits on every forum. None of that is what we marched for, shouted “We’re here, we’re queer, get over it” when even the most unbiased media scoffed at us, bottles, rocks and other projectiles were hurled our way, comedy routines on major networks taunted us with complete disregard and “gay bashing” was still a popular sport.
Pride is the opposite of the shame that boomers and especially “greatest generation” nearly gone perpetuated. Be proud, loud and please don’t fall for any of this ridiculous prosperity gospel spin offs, making the likes of Putin and his buddy Trump kings of your fate. LGBT for Trump, you were duped.