According to a recent survey by Gallup, the number of Americans identifying as Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, or transgender has doubled in the last 10 years to 7.1 percent.
This is a significant increase from 2021, when the percentage of those identifying as LGBT was 5.6 percent.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the poll was that 20.8 percent of Generation Z adults identified as LGBT. All other age groups remained relatively steady.
Bisexual was the most common identifier among LGBT respondents. Fifty-seven percent of LGBT people, or 4% of the general population, identified as bisexual. Twenty-one percent of LGBT respondents said they were gay, 14% said they were lesbian, 10% said they were transgender, and 4% said something else altogether.
The survey data was collected through a random sample of more than 12,000 adults.
The trends match an increase in support for the LGBT community. A June 2021 Gallup poll found that 70% of respondents said that same-sex marriages should be recognized as valid.
In the case of Generation Z young adults — those born between 1997 and 2003 — that 20.8 percent LGBT number is expected to rise because not all members of that generation have reached adulthood.
There is a definite divide between Generation Z adults and the rest of the country. For example, 15 percent of LGBT Generation Z adults identify as bisexual but only 6 percent of Millennials (born 1981-1996) do.
Bisexual is the most common LGBT status among Gen Z, millennials, and Gen X, while older Americans are about as likely to say they are gay or lesbian as to say they are bisexual.
Overall, 15% of Gen Z adults say they are bisexual, as do 6% of millennials and slightly less than 2% of Gen X.
Women (6.0%) are much more likely than men (2.0%) to say they are bisexual. Men are more likely to identify as gay (2.5%) than as bisexual, while women are much more likely to identify as bisexual than as lesbian (1.9%).
Gallup doesn’t speculate on why so many Generation Z adults don’t identify as straight. But the children of the new millennium are all about posturing and virtue signaling. Straight people are not oppressed, hence, they aren’t very cool.
Young Generation Z adults who are confused about their own sexual identity feel much freer to experiment than generations passed. Obviously, the culture plays a huge role in that experimentation as well as our warped educational system.
It will be interesting to revisit this survey in 10 years to see if those numbers for Generation Z hold up.
