US adults identifying as LGBTQ double in a decade: Gallup poll

The portion of U.S. adults identifying as LGBTQ has doubled over the last decade, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday.

Gallup found that 7.2 percent of Americans identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual in aggregated polling data from 2022. This is about double the portion of American adults who identified as LGBTQ in 2012, when 3.5 percent said as much.

However, after increases in the previous two years, the data from 2022 largely held steady from 2021, when 7.1 percent of U.S. adults said they were LGBTQ.

More than half of LGBTQ Americans in the poll identified as bisexual, accounting for 4.2 percent of all U.S. adults. Another 1.4 percent of Americans said they identified as gay, and 1 percent said they were lesbian, while 0.6 percent identified as transgender, according to the poll.

The increase in LGBTQ identification is largely being driven by younger generations. Nearly 20 percent of Generation Z adults — 19.7 percent — said they identified as LGBTQ in 2022, while 11.2 percent of millennials said the same.

Older generations are much less likely to identify as LGBTQ, with 3.3 percent of Generation X, 2.7 percent of baby boomers and 1.7 percent of the Silent Generation saying as much. 

Baby boomers and Silent Generation members who are part of the LGBTQ community are more likely to identify as gay compared to their younger counterparts, who most often identify as bisexual, according to the poll.

The LGBTQ community, particularly transgender individuals, have become a frequent target of legislation in GOP-controlled statehouses across the country.

South Dakota became the sixth state in the nation to ban gender-affirming care for transgender youths earlier this month, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) last year banned the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity in Kindergarten through third grade classrooms, claiming the topics were “inappropriate.”

Gallup conducted polling throughout 2022 with 10,736 adults and had a margin of error of 1 percentage point. However, among the 584 LGBTQ-identifying adults polled, the margin of error was 5 percentage points.