Almost 8% of American adults identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ spectrum

Nearly eight percent of adults now identify as LGBTQ+, according to data gathered by a survey with Gallup. An increasing number of people have been identifying as LGBTQ+ with younger generations in the US.

According to Gallup, LGBTQ identification in the US is continuing to grow, with 7.6 percent of adults now identifying themselves as LGBTQ+. This is up from 5.6 percent around four years ago, while in 2012 it was 3.5 percent. 2012 was the first year the polling organization took surveys on sexual orientation as well as transgender identification.

The results were based on 2023 Gallup telephone surveys and were released in March 2024. Gallup surveyed over 12,000 Americans who were aged 18 years or older for the project. Overall, around 85.6 percent of Americans are straight or heterosexual. 7.6 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something else in the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

Bisexual adults in the US, 4.4 percent, make up the largest portion of the LGBTQ group in the country, or 57.3 percent of LGBTQ+ adults. About one in eight LGBTQ adults identify as transgender, making up 11.8 percent of all LGBTQ adults and nearly one percent of all US adults.

The trend is also tied to younger adults. For each generation, a person is about twice as likely to identify as LGBTQ as opposed to the generation before. Over one in five adults in Gen Z (aged 18 to 26) in 2023 and one in ten Millenials (aged 27-42) identify as LGBTQ.

LGBTQ+ identification is also more common among women, with 8.5 percent of women identifying as LBGTQ versus men at 4.7 percent in the US adult population. The nonbinary population is about one percent of all US adults.