American Adults Identifying as LGBT Approaches 10%

The number of American adults who identify as LGBT is increasing, especially among youth, according to survey results. Last year, Gallup polled over 12,000 American adults and found that 7.6% identify “as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual.” That number is up from 5.6% in 2020 and 3.5% in 2012, when Gallup first began conducting the survey.

From 2012 to 2017, the share of American adults who self-identify as LGBT rose from 3.5% to 4.5% but increased much more steeply in following years. From 2017 to 2020, the share increased from 4.5% to 5.6%, a more significant rise than over the previous five years but in a shorter period of time. Between 2020 and 2021, the share of American adults identifying as LGBT jumped from 5.6% to 7.1%, and has now climbed to nearly 8% as of the end of 2023.

The vast majority (57.3%) of American adults who identify as LGBT say that they are bisexual. Gay (18.1%) and lesbian (15.1%) are the next most common self-prescribed identities, followed by transgender (11.8%). Other self-identifications not listed by Gallup but “volunteered” by those being polled included pansexual, asexual, queer, and others.

“Increases in LGBTQ+ identification in recent years have occurred as members of Generation Z and the millennial generation have entered adulthood. Adults in these younger generations are far more likely than those in older generations to identify as LGBTQ+,” Gallup noted. “Overall, each younger generation is about twice as likely as the generation that preceded it to identify as LGBTQ+. 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, 2% of baby boomers and 1% of the Silent Generation.”

According to the survey, 22.3% of those born between 1997 and 2012 (Generation Z) identify as LGBT, as do 9.8% of those born between 1981 and 1996 (Millennials) and 4.5% of those born between 1965 and 1980 (Generation X). Once again, “bisexual” is the most common LGBT self-identification across all three generations, although Gallup noted, “In the older generations, LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely, or equally as likely, to say they are gay or lesbian than bisexual.” Nearly 70% of Generation Z adults who identify as LGBT say that they are bisexual, as do just over 60% of Millennials and roughly 42% of Generation X adults.

However, the percentage of American adults who identify as transgender has grown exponentially, with Millennials more than twice as likely to identify as transgender than Generation X adults and Generation Z adults almost three times more likely to identify as transgender than Millennials. Only a half a percent of Generation X adults identified as transgender, compared to 1.1% of Millennials and 2.8% of Generation Z adults.

Additionally, while LGBT identification was almost evenly split between men and women among the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, and Generation X, Millennial women were more than twice as likely to identify as LGBT compared to Millennial men, and women of Generation Z were almost three times as likely to identify as LGBT compared to men of the same generation. Less than 5% of Generation X women and only 3.5% of Generation X men identified as LGBT, compared to 12.4% of Millennial women and 5.4% of Millennial men, and 28.5% of Generation Z women and only 10.6% of Generation Z men (of whom 0.1% identified as “lesbian”).

Gallup concluded, “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.”