Number of Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ hits record high
Gallup has found that the number of people identifying as LGBTQ+ continues to grow. (Getty/Flashpop)
The number of Americans who identify within the LGBTQ+ community has hit a record high, new statistics show.
A Gallup report released on Thursday (20 February), has shown that the number of people identifying within the LGBT+ community has reached a high of 9.3 per cent, up from 7.6 per cent in 2023 and 7.2 per cent in 2022.
The findings follow Gallup conducting telephone interviews with 14,000 adults across all 50 US states, resulting in 900 adults identifying within the LGBTQ+ community, leading in Gallup to estimate the 9.3 per cent outcome.
‘More than half identify as bisexual’
Among those that identified as LGBTQ+, more than half (56 per cent) said they were bisexual, while 21 per cent said they were gay, 15 per cent said they were lesbian, 14 per cent identified as transgender and six as “something else”.
Senior editor at Gallup, Jeff Jones, told NBC News of the rising number of Americans publicly identifying as LGBTQ+: “I didn’t think we would get to 10 per cent as quickly.
“We’re getting pretty close to that one in 10 figure, which I think would be a notable milestone.”
Jones said the rise in LGBTQ+ identities is due to Generation Z (19 to 28) reaching adulthood. Beyond generation and age, Democrat voters and women were more likely to identify as LGBTQ+.
‘The rate of LGBTQ+ identification is likely to continue to grow’
The report concludes: “In the 12 years that Gallup has been tracking LGBTQ+ identification, it has nearly tripled, as those becoming adults during that period have been far more likely than their elders to say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
“The recent increase is largely due to more adults in their late teens, 20s and 30s – particularly young women – saying they are bisexual. But younger adults are also more likely than older adults to identify as lesbian, gay, transgender or other non-heterosexual orientations. The rate of LGBTQ+ identification is likely to continue to grow, given the generational shifts underway.”
The survey reported margin of sampling errors plus or minus four percentage points among LGBTQ+ respondents.
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics in January show that the number of young adults identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual has reportedly quadrupled over the last decade.
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