Gen Z drives "upward trend" in those identifying as LGBTQ+
Washington DC - A total of 7.2% of adults in the US identified as LGBTQ+ in 2022, a Gallup poll released Wednesday shows, with numbers "expected to grow in future years."
While that’s just a small increase from 2021 numbers — 7.1% — the 2022 Gallup data reflects an overall upward trend.
In 2012, when the analytics giant began measuring LGBTQ+ identification, only about 3.5% of adults self-identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or something other than heterosexual and cisgender (meaning they identify with the sex they were assigned at birth).
Researchers credit the younger generations — especially those born between 1997 and 2004, or Gen Z — for the continuous increase.
Nearly 20% of Gen Z adults identified as LGBTQ+. That rate is considerably lower (11.2%) among millennials – adults born between 1981 and 1996.
Only 3.3% of Generation X adults, those born between 1965 and 1980 identified as LGBTQ+.
How many Americans identify as LGBTQ+?
Data for the 2022 survey came from phone interviews with more than 10,000 adults. Gallup researchers asked respondents if they identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or another identity. Some of the volunteered responses included pansexual, asexual, or queer. Respondents could also choose multiple identities.
As is "typically the case," the largest share of LGBTQ+ adults identified as bisexual, the survey found. About 1 in 5 LGBTQ+ adults identify as gay, about 1 in 7 say they are lesbian, and slightly fewer than 1 in 10 identify as transgender.
The proportion of bisexual adults is also higher among younger generations.
About 66% of LGBTQ+ Gen Z adults and 62% of LGBTQ millennials identified as bisexual in 2022. Among older generations, less than half of LGBT adults say they are bisexual.
Even though LGBTQ+ identification remained somewhat stable in 2022 when compared with the previous year, it has become "much more common in the US in the past decade," researchers wrote, adding that the upward trend is expected to continue.
"With many more younger than older adults seeing themselves as something other than heterosexual, the LGBT share of the entire US adult population can be expected to grow in future years," researchers wrote.
"However, this growth depends on younger people who enter adulthood in future years continuing to be much more likely to identify as LGBT than their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents," they added.
The poll comes as new data shows more than half of LGBTQ+ youth who came out before they were teenagers have "seriously considered suicide" and as states across the US have introduced anti-trans legislation and bans on gender-affirming health care.
Cover photo: JASON CONNOLLY / AFP