More Americans identify as LGBTQ than ever, new Gallup poll finds

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More Americans than ever are identifying themselves as members of the LGBTQ community, according to a new Gallup poll.

Gallup’s latest update on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer identification finds 5.6% of U.S. adults identifying as LGBTQ. The current estimate is up from 4.5% in Gallup’s previous update based on 2017 data.

Currently, 86.7% of Americans say they are heterosexual or straight, and 7.6% did not answer the question about their sexual orientation. Gallup’s 2012-2017 data had roughly 5% “no opinion” responses.

»Read the entire poll here

The latest results are based on more than 15,000 interviews conducted throughout 2020 with Americans ages 18 and older. Gallup had previously reported annual updates from its 2012-2017 daily tracking survey data but did not routinely measure LGBTQ identification in 2018 or 2019.

“What they’re trying to come up with is the people who self-identify,” said Gary Gates, a demographer who helped Gallup develop its 2012 survey. Gates told NBC News, “It’s a measure of identity, not behavior or feelings or some other measurements we might use. They weren’t trying to count all the people in the closet.”

An estimated 5.6%of Americans identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, according to a new Gallup report. (Joseph Golby/Dreamstime/TNS)

Credit: TNS

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Credit: TNS

Gallup editor Jeffrey Jones also told NBC younger Americans are more open about their identity.

“Younger people are growing up in an environment where being gay, lesbian or bisexual is not as taboo as it was in the past,” Jones said. “So they may just feel more comfortable telling an interviewer in a telephone survey how they describe themselves. In the past, people would maybe be more reluctant.”

More than half of LGBTQ adults (54.6%) identify as bisexual. About a quarter (24.5%) say they are gay, with 11.7% identifying as lesbian and 11.3% as transgender. An additional 3.3% volunteer another non-heterosexual preference or term to describe their sexual orientation, such as queer or same-gender-loving.

Respondents can give multiple responses when describing their sexual identification; thus, the totals exceed 100%.

Here are some of the poll’s other findings:

  • Women are more likely than men to identify as LGBTQ (6.4% vs. 4.9%, respectively).
  • Women are more likely to identify as bisexual — 4.3% do, with 1.3% identifying as lesbian and 1.3% as something else. Among men, 2.5% identify as gay, 1.8% as bisexual and 0.6% as something else.
  • 13% of political liberals, 4.4% of moderates and 2.3% of conservatives say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
  • Differences are somewhat less pronounced by party identification than by ideology, with 8.8% of Democrats, 6.5% of independents and 1.7% of Republicans identifying as LGBTQ.
  • There are no meaningful educational differences — 5.6% of college graduates and 5.7% of college nongraduates are LGBTQ.

“At a time when Americans are increasingly supportive of equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people, a growing percentage of Americans identify themselves as LGBT,” Gallup said, when summarizing its poll findings. “With younger generations far more likely than older generations to consider themselves LGBT, that growth should continue.

Younger people are growing up in an environment where being gay, lesbian or bisexual is not as taboo as it was in the past.

- Jeffrey Jones, Gallup editor

“The pronounced generational differences raise questions about whether higher LGBT identification in younger than older Americans reflects a true shift in sexual orientation, or if it merely reflects a greater willingness of younger people to identify as LGBT. To the extent it reflects older Americans not wanting to acknowledge an LGBT orientation, the Gallup estimates may underestimate the actual population prevalence of it.”

Gallup said one of the biggest recent advances in LGBTQ rights was the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide.