The percentage of adults in the US who identified as LGBTQ increased slightly year over year to 7.2% last year, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.
While this is a slight increase from the 7.1% in 2021, it is more than double from a decade ago, when Gallup found just 3.5% of the US population identified as something other than heterosexual in 2012.
Gallup asked more than 10,000 adults nationwide how they identify in telephone interviews last year.
For the first time, the organization recorded the identity of LGBTQ people who said they were something other than gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. It found that about 5% of LGBTQ adults identified outside of those terms. Most of them – about 0.1% of all US adults – said they were queer, pansexual or asexual.
“Queer” is an umbrella term that generally refers to people who are not heterosexual or cisgender, meaning they do not identify with their assigned genders at birth. “Pansexual” means that a person experiences sexual or romantic attraction regardless of sex or gender identity. “Asexual” describes someone who does not experience sexual attraction to others.
Gallup found that 58.2% (or 4.2% of all US adults) of LGBTQ adults are bisexual, while 20.2% identify as lesbian, 13.4% identify as lesbian, and 8.8% identify as transgender. We do.
Of those who said they were straight or heterosexual, 86% of respondents answered yes, while 7% chose not to answer the question.
Continuing previous trends, Generation Z, or those aged 19 to 26, are most likely to identify as LGBTQ, compared to 11.2% of millennials, who are 27 to 42; 3.3% of Generation X, who are 43 to 58 years old; 2.7% baby boomers, ages 59 to 77; and 1.7% of the Silent Generation, who are 78 or older.
Gallup found that younger generations are more likely to identify as bisexual than older generations. For example, 66% of LGBTQ people in Generation Z and 62% of LGBTQ Millennials identify as bisexual, compared to 48% of Generation X, 26% of Baby Boomers, and 35% of Silent Generation.
LGBTQ respondents in the two oldest generations are most likely to identify as gay (37% of Baby Boomers and 47% of Silent Generation) and lesbian (26% of Baby Boomers and 12% of Silent Generation).
Gallup said the share of LGBTQ adults in the US is expected to grow, but that growth “depends on young people who enter adulthood in future years, their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.” “
