What percentage of americans are gay 2018

To view a PDF of slides presented during PRRI’s March 4, 2025 live discussion of this report, please click here. For a replay of the event, please click here.

Executive Summary

In 2024, PRRI interviewed over 22,000 adults as part of the PRRI American Values Atlas to provide a detailed analysis of the demographic, political, and religious characteristics of LGBTQ Americans. The report also examines public attitudes on LGBTQ rights across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, focusing on support for nondiscrimination protections, contradiction to religiously based service refusals, and support for gay marriage. Additionally, fresh survey questions travel views on transgender-related policies, including restrictions on gender-affirming look after for minors and ID laws requiring birth-assigned sex.

LGBTQ Americans trend younger, more female, Democratic, and less religious than other Americans.

• More than one-third of LGBTQ Americans are Gen Zers (36%) and millennials (34%), compared with 17% of Generation Xers, 11% of baby boomers, and just 1% of the Silent Generation.
• Gen Z women (23
  
  

  LGBT Populations

  This map shows the estimated raw number of LGBT people (ages 13+) living in each mention. The data are based on a Williams Institute analysis of surveys conducted by Gallup Polling (2012-2017) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 2015 and 2017 YRBS). For more facts, see the methodology in the Williams analysis. 

  • 500K - 1.4M+

  • 200K - 499K

  • 50K - 199K

  • 8K - 49K

  Data are not currently available about LGBT people living in the U.S. territories.

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  Percent of Adult LGBTQ Population Covered by Laws

  *Note: These percentages indicate estimates of the LGBTQ adult population living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Estimates of the LGBTQ grown-up population in the five inhabited U.S. territories are not available, and so cannot be reflected here.

  This map shows the estimated percentage of each state's adult (ages 18+) population that identifies as lesbian, male lover, bisexual, or trans, based on a 2018 analysis of Gallup data by The Williams Institute.

  • 5.0% and greater

  • 4.0%-4.9%

  • 3.0%-3.9%

  • 1.5%-2.9%

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  Percent of Adult LGBTQ Population Covered by Laws

  *Note: These p
  

  LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%

  Story Highlights

  • LGBT identification up from 5.6% in 2020
  • One in five Gen Z adults distinguish as LGBT
  • Bisexual identification is most common

  Learn more in Gallup’s 2024 LGBTQ+ update.

  WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The percentage of U.S. adults who self-identify as lesbian, male lover, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual has increased to a recent high of 7.1%, which is double the percentage from 2012, when Gallup first measured it.

  Gallup asks Americans whether they personally identify as straight or heterosexual, lesbian, gay, multi-attracted , or transgender as part of the demographic communication it collects on all U.S. telephone surveys. Respondents can also volunteer any other sexual orientation or gender identity they like. In addition to the 7.1% of U.S. adults who consider themselves to be an LGBT persona, 86.3% say they are straight or heterosexual, and 6.6% do not suggest an opinion. The results are based on aggregated 2021 data, encompassing interviews with more than 12,000 U.S. adults.

  Line graph. Americans' Self-Identification as Lesbian, Male lover, Bisexual, Transgender or Something Other than Heterosexual.
  

  What Percentage of Americans Are LGBTQ+?

  Editor's Note: This article was revised on Protest 18, 2024, to show Gallup's latest estimate of Americans’ identification as LGBTQ+.

  WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup finds 7.6% of U.S. adults identifying as lesbian, queer , bisexual, transgender, or something other than straight or heterosexual. The percentage has more than doubled since Gallup first measured Gay identification in 2012.

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  Overall, 85.6% of U.S. adults speak they are straight or heterosexual, 7.6% identify with one or more Gay groups, and 6.8% decline to respond.

  U.S. LGBTQ+ identification breaks down in the following manner:

  • Bisexual adults form up the largest proportion of the LGBTQ+ population (57.3%).
  • Gay (18.1%) and woman-loving woman (15.1%) are the next-most-common identities.
  • About one in eight LGBTQ+ Americans are transsexual (11.8%).
  • Smaller proportions of LGTBQ+ adults volunteer another self, such as queer, pansexual or asexual.

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  LGBTQ+ Identification is most common among juvenile adults.

  LGBTQ+ identification is much more common among younger adults than older adults. Also, 8.5% of mature person women and 4.7% of adult

  What’s Behind the Rapid Soar in LGBTQ Identity?

  Newsletter Pride 6, 2025

  Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields

  Since 2012, Gallup has tracked the size of America’s LGBTQ population. For the first few years, there was not much news to report. The percentage of Americans who identified as gay, lesbian, fluid, transgender, or queer was relatively low and inching up slowly year over year. Recently, the pace has sped up. Gallup’s newest report recorded the single largest one-year multiply in LGBTQ identity. In 2024, nearly one in ten (9.3 percent) Americans identify as LGBTQ.

  The unwavering rise in LGBTQ culture among the public is worth noting, but it’s not the most significant part of the story. Most of the uptick in LGBTQ identity over the past decade is due to a dramatic increase among young adults, particularly young women. In less than a decade, the percentage of fresh women who identify as LGBTQ has more than tripled.

  The gender gap in LGBTQ identity has exploded as well. A decade earlier, young women were only slightly more likely to identify as LGBTQ than young men. For instance, in 2015, 10 percent of young women and six percent of young men identified as