More Americans identify as LGBTQ2S+ than ever before, poll finds

Rainbow flags, a symbol of LGBTQ2S+ pride and social movements, are seen outside the Stonewall Monument in New York City on June 7, 2022. (Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

The proportion of American adults who identify as LGBTQ+ has risen to 9.3 per cent of the population, according to a Gallup Poll released Thursday.

The finding represents an increase of more than one percentage point from 2023’s estimate. The proportion of the population identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or non-heterosexual has nearly doubled since 2020 and has jumped from 3.5 per cent since 2012, when it was first measured by Gallup, an analytics and advisory company based in Washington, DC.

“If there is one thing that people should take away from these new findings, it is this: LGBTQ+ people have always been here, and we will continue to be here, no matter what laws or policies attempt to erase us,” said Jaymes Black, CEO of The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ2S+ youth, via email.

The boost has a lot to do with young people, who have been much more likely than older generations to identify as something other than heterosexual, Gallup said.

“More than one in five Gen Z adults — those born between 1997 and 2006, who were between the ages of 18 and 27 in 2024 — identify as LGBTQ+,” according to Gallup’s report. “Each older generation of adults, from millennials to the Silent Generation, has successively lower rates of identification, down to 1.8 per cent among the oldest Americans, those born before 1946.”

The percentage of young people identifying as LGBTQ2S+ has increased over the past two years from an average of 18.8 per cent in 2020 through 2022 to an average of 22.7 per cent, according to the poll. Gallup also observed an increase of nearly two percentage points among millennials and an increase of one percentage point among Generation X.

The findings are based on phone interviews conducted in 2024 with more than 14,100 adults in the United States. Overall, 85.7 per cent of respondents said they were straight, whereas 5.2 per cent were bisexual, two per cent were gay, 1.4 per cent were lesbian and 1.3 per cent were transgender, the pollsters found. Just under one per cent identified as another LGBTQ2S+ identity, such as pansexual, asexual or queer. Five per cent of respondents declined to answer.

Among the 899 LGBTQ2S+ participants from the overall sample, 56 per cent reported being bisexual, 21 per cent said they were gay, 15 per cent identified themselves as lesbian, 14 per cent reported being transgender and six per cent said they were “something else.” (These figures total more than 100 per cent due to Gallup allowing participants to report more than one identity. For example, a person can be transgender and pansexual.) More than half of Generation Z said they were bisexual.

“Those of us who have identified for a long time as LGBTQ+ are always encouraged … when younger generations find the courage to live their truths,” Dr. Kaila Adia Story, the Audre Lorde Endowed Chair in Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality Studies at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, said via email.

How the findings differ by demographics

Gallup also found that LGBTQ2S+ identification differs by gender, location and political affiliation.

Ten per cent of women versus six per cent of men are LGBTQ2S+, and that difference is markedly more striking among younger generations — 31 per cent of women versus 12 per cent of men in Gen Z, and 18 per cent of women versus 9 per cent of men among millennials.

The discrepancies may be partly because “dominant notions of masculinity are still intimately tied to being heterosexual,” Dr. Brandon Robinson, chair and associate professor in the department of gender and sexuality studies at the University of California, Riverside, said via email. “Dominant notions of masculinity do not often allow for sexual fluidity or exploring one’s sexuality. Moreover, bisexual men are still often stigmatized as being gay, delegitimizing their bisexual identity.”

Identifying as LGBTQ2S+ is also more common in cities and suburbs compared with rural areas, and among Democrats and independents versus Republicans, according to the poll. Gallup didn’t observe, however, any differences based on education since both college graduates and nongraduates were equally likely to identify as LGBTQ2S+, it said.

The findings don’t indicate that queer and transgender people are new, Black said.

“It is the increase in visibility and understanding of our identities that has allowed us to live more openly — and share these parts of who we are with others,” Black added. “Growing up, I had extremely limited access to any information about LGBTQ+ people and topics, and greatly lacked visible LGBTQ+ role models to look up to. And yet, here I stand as an out and proud queer person. Like all LGBTQ+ people, these identities are simply realities of who I am.”

People of LGBTQ2S+ identities have always existed, including trans people, said Dr. Lexx Brown-James, a licensed marriage and family therapist and CEO of the Institute for Sexuality & Intimacy, via email.

“We have the Muxes of Mexico, the Mahu of Polynesia, the Hijras of South Asia, the Chibados of Angola, not to mention the many Two-Spirit peoples of various Indigenous peoples and so many more,” Brown-James said.

For these reasons, Robinson said, people should see the results as a good thing.

“This trend is supported by the fact that each later generation is more likely to identify as LGBTQ than previous generations, showing how society is changing around gender and sexuality,” Robinson added.

Experts said they hope the poll results remind everyone that LGBTQ2S+ people are friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors, teammates and more. They also noted that while there has been societal and political progress in the past, current anti-LGBTQ2S+ rhetoric is taking a toll on the community.

There are currently 390 bills targeting LGBTQ2S+ rights in the United States.

“Regardless of a person’s politics, I hope this poll helps lawmakers and leaders across the U.S. see LGBTQ2S+ people for who we are: people who exist and belong in every community, in every corner of this country,” Black said. “We just want to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect, like anyone else.”