What percentage of people are gahy

LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%

Story Highlights

  • LGBT identification up from 5.6% in 2020
  • One in five Gen Z adults name as LGBT
  • Bisexual identification is most common

Learn more in Gallup’s 2024 LGBTQ+ update.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The percentage of U.S. adults who self-identify as lesbian, same-sex attracted, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual has increased to a brand-new high of 7.1%, which is double the percentage from 2012, when Gallup first measured it.

Gallup asks Americans whether they personally identify as straight or heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bi, or transgender as part of the demographic data it collects on all U.S. telephone surveys. Respondents can also volunteer any other sexual orientation or gender identity they opt for. In addition to the 7.1% of U.S. adults who consider themselves to be an LGBT culture, 86.3% say they are straight or heterosexual, and 6.6% do not propose an opinion. The results are based on aggregated 2021 data, encompassing interviews with more than 12,000 U.S. adults.

Line graph. Americans' Self-Identification as Lesbian, Homosexual, Bisexual, Transgender or Something Other than Heterosexual. what percentage of people are gahy

What’s Behind the Rapid Ascend in LGBTQ Identity?

Newsletter Protest 6, 2025

Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields

Since 2012, Gallup has tracked the size of America’s LGBTQ population. For the first few years, there was not much news to report. The percentage of Americans who identified as gay, lesbian, multi-attracted , transgender, or queer was relatively low and inching up slowly year over year. Recently, the pace has sped up. Gallup’s newest report recorded the single largest one-year expand in LGBTQ identity. In 2024, nearly one in ten (9.3 percent) Americans identify as LGBTQ.

The stable rise in LGBTQ persona among the public is worth noting, but it’s not the most crucial part of the story. Most of the uptick in LGBTQ identity over the past decade is due to a dramatic increase among young adults, particularly young women. In less than a decade, the percentage of youthful women who identify as LGBTQ has more than tripled.

The gender gap in LGBTQ identity has exploded as well. A decade earlier, young women were only slightly more likely to identify as LGBTQ than young men. For instance, in 2015, 10 percent of young women and six percent of young men identified as

Estimates and characteristics of LGBTI+ populations in Australia

Proportion of LGB+(a) and heterosexual (straight) people 16 years and over by state or territory, 2022[["NSW","Vic","Qld","SA","WA","Tas","NT","ACT"],[[29.600000000000001],[31.600000000000001],[18.100000000000001],[6.4000000000000004],[8.4000000000000004],[2.6000000000000001],[0.69999999999999996],[2.3999999999999999]],[[26.300000000000001,32.899999999999999],[28.699999999999999,34.5],[15.5,20.699999999999999],[5.2000000000000002,7.5999999999999996],[6.9000000000000004,9.9000000000000004],[2,3.2000000000000002],[0.5,0.90000000000000002],[1.7,3.1000000000000001]],[[31.800000000000001],[25.600000000000001],[20.300000000000001],[7.0999999999999996],[10.6],[2.2000000000000002],[0.69999999999999996],[1.7]],[[31.699999999999999,31.899999999999999],[25.5,25.699999999999999],[20.199999999999999,20.399999999999999],[7,7.2000000000000002],[10.5,10.699999999999999],[2.2000000000000002,2.2000000000000002],[0.69999999999999996,0.69999999999999996],[1.7,1.7]]][][{"value":"0","axis_id":"0","axis_title"

The ‘Global Closet’ is Huge—Vast Majority of World’s Woman loving woman, Gay, Bisexual Population Cover Orientation, YSPH Study Finds

The vast majority of the world’s sexual minority population — an estimated 83 percent of those who identify as lesbian, homosexual or bisexual — retain their orientation hidden from all or most of the people in their lives, according to a new study by the Yale School of General Health that could possess major implications for global public health.

Concealing one’s sexual orientation can lead to significant mental and physical health issues, increased healthcare costs and a dampening of the public awareness necessary for advancing identical rights, said John Pachankis, Ph.D., associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health. He co-authored the study with Richard Bränström, an associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and investigate affiliate at Yale.

Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the study is believed to be the first attempt to quantify the size of the “global closet” in arrange to gauge its general health impact.

“Given rapidly increasing acceptance of sexual minorities in some countries, it might be easy to assume that most sexual minorities are

Adult LGBT Population in the United States

This report provides estimates of the number and percent of the U.S. individual population that identifies as LGBT, overall, as well as by age. Estimates of LGBT adults at the national, state, and regional levels are included. We rely on BRFSS 2020-2021 statistics for these estimates. Pooling multiple years of data provides more stable estimates—particularly at the express level.

Combining 2020-2021 BRFSS data, we estimate that 5.5% of U.S. adults distinguish as LGBT. Further, we estimate that there are almost 13.9 million (13,942,200) LGBT adults in the U.S.

Regions and States

LGBT people reside in all regions of the U.S. (Table 2 and Figure 2). Consistent with the overall population in the United States,more LGBT adults live in the South than in any other region. More than half (57.0%) of LGBT people in the U.S. inhabit in the Midwest (21.1%) and South (35.9%), including 2.9 million in the Midwest and 5.0 million in the South. About one-quarter (24.5%) of LGBT adults reside in the West, approximately 3.4 million people. Less than one in five (18.5%) LGBT adults inhabit in the Northeast (2.6 million).

The percent of adults who identify as LGBT