A new study reveals exactly how many LGBTQ+ people there are in America

According to a study conducted by Gallup, the percentage of US adults who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or otherwise non-heterosexual has increased slightly each year during 2020 and 2021, reaching 7.2% in 2022.

The firm notes that the data is based on compiled polling results from telephone polls conducted by Gallup in 2022 that included interviews with more than 10,000 respondents. Gallup allowed respondents to select from a range of identities when asking if they identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or anything else in each study.

In contrast, 86% of Americans who were asked the same question identified as straight or heterosexual, with 7% declining to respond.

The majority of LGBTQ+ respondents—more than half of them—identified as bisexual, making it the most common identity within America’s queer population. That equates to 4.2 percent of all US adults.

Around one in five adults who make up the 7.2% identify as gay, one in seven as lesbian, and somewhat fewer than one in ten as transgender.

For the first time, Gallup collected data from non-heterosexual respondents who identified as something other than lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

The majority of these people identified as queer, pansexual, or asexual. This equates to between one and two percent of LGBT individuals or 0.1% of the adult population as a whole.

According to Gallup data, Gen Z adults, or those born between 1997 and 2004, are more likely to identify as LGBTQ+ than previous generations.

19.7% of Gen Z in the US identify as LGBTQ+. The rate is 3.3% or less for previous generations and 11.2% for millennials.

Among Generation Z, 13.1% identified as bisexual, compared to 3.4% who identified as gay, 2.2% who identified as lesbian, and 1.9% who identified as transgender.

The 7.2% figure is twice as high as it was when Gallup began tracking LGBT identities ten years ago.

Source: Gallup