LGBT Identity by Generation (2012-24)

 

This article is the second in a series that examines Gallup’s report on LGBT identity in the United States.

The first article examines the percent of US adults who identify as LGBT, and how that figure has changed over time. It also examines the prevalence of specific LGBT identities, and how those figures have changed over time.

 

 

Younger people are more likely to identify as LGBT.

In fact, a higher percentage of each generation identifies as LGBT than the one that came before.

This generational pattern has been true every time Gallup has surveyed US adults about their sexualities and gender identities.

 

Gen Z has the highest level of LGBT identification, followed by Millennials, Gen X, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation, in that order.

This pattern has held all 11 times Gallup has asked Americans whether they are LGBT.

 

 

 

 

Most recent results

 

This graph shows the percent of each generation that identified as LGBT in 2024.

 

 

I created the graphs in this article using flourish, a website that allows users to create compelling visual aids. 

 

23.1% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBT.

14.2% of Millennials identify as LGBT.

9.3% of US adults, overall, identify as LGBT.

5.1% of Gen X identifies as LGBT.

3.0% of Baby Boomers identify as LGBT.

1.8% of the Silent Generation identifies as LGBT.

 

As you can see, the generational differences are quite large.

 

 

 

 

The 2020s

 

Gallup’s annual reports allow us not only to learn the percentage of each generation that identifies as LGBT, but how these figures have changed over time.

 

This graph shows the percent of each generation that identified as LGBT each year, from 2020-2024.

 

 

 

Here is a version of the graph without numerical labels.

 

 

As you can see, the generational pattern is consistent, each generation has a higher level of LGBT identification than the one that came before, for all five years displayed on the graph.

The overall percentage of US adults who identify as LGBT is also consistently between Millennials and Gen X.

 

Millennials had the largest increase in LGBT identification in 2024, according to Gallup.

 

 

 

This table contains the values used to create the graphs above.

 

 

 

Widening the Aperture

 

Gallup also collected data on LGBT identification from 2012-17.

At the time, Gallup asked respondents whether they, personally, identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, and respondents could answer with a “yes” or “no”.

From 2020-24, Gallup has asked respondents which specific LGBT identities they use.

Gallup did not collect data on LGBT identity in 2018 or 2019.

 

This graph shows the percent of each generation that identified as LGBT in each of Gallup’s surveys from 2012-24.

Gallup did not report the percent of Gen Z adults that identified as LGBT in its earlier annual reports.

 

This graph clearly shows just how much more common it is for members of Gen Z to identify as LGBT than it is for members of older generations.

 

 

 

Now, let’s take a look at the graph with Gen Z removed, so we can more easily see the other lines.

 

Two interesting things stand out.

First, the percent of Millennials who identify as LGBT dropped in 2023, before rising sharply in 2024.

It’s possible this is just the consequence of the imprecise nature of polling, but the differences are particularly notable when viewed on this scale.

 

Second, the value for Gen X declined, and the value for the Silent Generation rose, in 2022.

This caused the lines for Gen X, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation to move closer together in 2022 than they have been in the surrounding years.

 

 

According to Gallup's data, the percent of Millennials who identify as LGBT increased by 8.4% from 2012 to '24. 

The percent of Gen X who identifies as LGBT increased by 1.9%. 

The percent of Baby Boomers who identify as LGBT increased by 0.3%.

And the percent of the Silent Generation who identifies as LGBT has remained the same. 

 

 

 

The 2010s

 

Now, let’s take a closer look at the values for 2012-17.

 

As you can see, the generational pattern holds here as well.

Millennials are the most likely to identify as LGBT, followed by Gen X, Baby Boomers, and the Silent Generation, in that order.

 

And once again, the percent of US adults, as a whole, who identify as LGBT, is still between the values for Millennials and Gen X.

Although, the line for US adults is much closer to Gen X from 2012-17 than it is from 2020-24.

 

 

 

Here is a version of the graph for 2012-17 with labels for the data.

 

 

 

Finally, here is the table of values for LGBT identity, by generation, from 2012-17.

 

 

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably fascinated by these statistics, just like I am.

If that’s the case, you should check out my related coverage.

 

Season 2 of LGBT by the Numbers covered the results of Gallup’s 2023 survey of LGBT identity in the United States. 

Season 2 included the following articles. 

 

LGBT Identities by Generation includes bar graphs showing the percent of each generation who identify with specific LGBT identities.

 

LGBT Identity by Gender includes graphs showing the prevalence of specific LGBT identities among men and women for each generation.

 

LGBT Identities by Generation, continued takes each specific LGBT identity, individually, and compares the percent of each generation that identified with that identity from 2020-23.

 

Generations by LGBT Identities examines each generation, individually, and compares the percent of that generation that identified with specific LGBT identities, from 2020-23.

 

 

In the next article, I will use Gallup’s 2024 results to calculate the number of US adults who identify as LGBT, as well as the numbers for specific identities.

I will then compare these numbers to the populations of US states.

 

Gallup: 9.3% of Americans are LGBT

 

The percent of Americans who identify as LGBT has increased every year Gallup has surveyed US adults about their sexualities and gender identities.

In its most recent annual report, the percent of Americans who identify as LGBT increased by the most it ever has, since Gallup began tracking LGBT identity in 2012.

 

 

A total of 9.3% of US adults identified as LGBT in 2024, according to Gallup.

The polling firm’s results are based on phone surveys with more than 14,000 US adults in 2024.

Gallup asked respondents whether they identify as straight or heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something else.

 

 

 

 

Change over time

 

The percent of US adults who identify as LGBT has nearly tripled since Gallup began tracking LGBT identity in 2012. 

 

 

I created the graphs in this article using flourish, a website that allows users to create compelling visual aids. 

You can view larger versions of the graphs and tables in this article by clicking on them. 

Here are the values used to create the line graph above.

 

In 2012, only 3.5% of US adults identified as LGBT.

By 2024, the proportion of US adults who identify as LGBT rose to 9.3%. 

 

 

 

The wording of Gallup’s LGBT question has changed only slightly over the past 12 years.

From 2012-17, respondents were asked, “Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?”

Respondents could answer with a “yes” or “no”.

 

Gallup did not collect data on LGBT identity in the US in 2018 or 2019. 

 

Beginning in 2020, Gallup has asked respondents whether they identify as straight or heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something else.

Respondents can then tell the interviewer which identities they use.

 

 

 

Gallup has estimated the percent of LGBT Americans 11 times.

The largest increase in LGBT identification in the US took place last year.

In 2024, the percent of US adults who identified as LGBT increased by 1.7%, compared to 2023. 

 

The next largest increase was in 2021, when 1.5% more Americans identified as LGBT than did so in 2020.

The third largest increase took place from 2017-2020, when the percent of LGBT US adults grew by 1.1%.

These are the only times when the percent of LGBT US adults increased from the prior estimate by more than 0.5%.

 

 

 

 

Specific Identities

 

Gallup calculated the percent of US adults who identified with specific LGBT identities in 2024.

5.2% are bisexual, 2.0% are gay, 1.4% are lesbian, and 1.3% are transgender.

 

The percent of Americans who identify with each of these identities increased from 2023 to ’24.

Bisexual increased by 0.8%, gay increased by 0.6%, transgender increased by 0.4%, and lesbian increased by 0.2%.

 

Gallup has estimated the percent of US adults who identify with each of these specific identities for the last five years, beginning in 2020.

The order of the identities across US adults has remained consistent in each annual survey.

Bisexual is the most common LGBT identity, followed by gay, lesbian, and transgender, in that order.

 

 

 

This graph shows the percent of US adults who identified with each identity every year, since 2020.

It also shows the total number of US adults who identified as LGBT, since 2020. 

 

I will show additional versions of this graph that allow the smaller figures to be more easily seen. 

 

 

 

This graph displays the lines for specific LGBT identities.

You can see just how much the bisexual line towers over the others.

 

 

 

Finally, let’s zoom in on the identities at the bottom.

As the previous three graphs show, the lines for LGBT, bisexual, gay, lesbian, and transgender have each increased from where they began in 2020.

 

 

 

Here is the table of values used to create the graphs above.

 

 

A Closer Look

 

Looking closer at the data reveals LGBT Americans are becoming more comfortable disclosing their identities to Gallup over the phone.

In its annual reports, Gallup includes three broad categories of respondents: those who identify as LGBT, those who identify as straight or heterosexual, and those who decline to answer the question.

Examining what is happening to the non-LGBT categories can help us understand the dynamics behind the increase in the number of LGBT Americans.

 

 

Of the respondents who answer the question, Gallup’s figure for “Straight or Heterosexual” refers to anyone who doesn’t identify as LGBT.

This isn’t, strictly speaking, correct.

Transgender isn’t a sexuality, it’s a gender identity.

Transgender people can, and sometimes do, identify as straight.

But to understand Gallup’s data, we need to recognize the polling agency uses “Straight or Heterosexual” to refer to respondents who aren’t LGBT.

 

 

Sometimes, Gallup describes the percent of US adults who are “straight or heterosexual,”  and the percent who decline to answer, to the nearest tenth of a percent.

Sometimes, Gallup rounds these figures to the nearest percent.

 

 

In its most recent report, Gallup said 85.7% of US adults identify as straight or heterosexual, and five percent decline to answer the question.

Since we know these figures, and those who identify as LGBT, should add together to make 100%, we can determine the percent who declined to answer was 5.0%.

 

 

In Gallup’s 2023 report, the polling firm reported 85.6% of US adults identified as straight or heterosexual, and 6.8% declined to answer.

From 2023 to ’24, the percent of US adults who identified as straight or heterosexual increased by 0.1%, which essentially means it remained the same.

More importantly, the percent of US adults who identified as LGBT increased by 1.7%, while the percent who declined to answer fell by 1.8%. 

Therefore, the rise in LGBT identification in 2024 occurred because LGBT people became more comfortable disclosing their identities to Gallup.

 

 

 

We can also examine this trend over the past five years.

The following table rounds values to the nearest percent, both because Gallup doesn’t always provide all of the relevant figures to an additional degree of precision, and because the trend is actually easier to see without the extra decimal place.

We do have the additional degree of precision for 2020 and 2024, so I will use the extra decimal place in my analysis below. 

 

Since 2020, the percent of US adults who are straight or heterosexual has decreased by 1.0%, from 86.7% to 85.7%.

The percent of US adults who decline to answer has decreased by 2.6%, from 7.6% to 5.0%.

Meanwhile, the percent of US adults who are LGBT has increased by 3.7%, from 5.6% to 9.3%.

 

This provides additional evidence that the primary driver of the growth in the number of LGBT Americans is the increasing willingness of LGBT people to disclose their identities to Gallup over the phone.

 

 

If we assume, for the sake of argument, the 5.0% who declined to answer in 2024 are also LGBT, that would imply the percent of US adults who are LGBT could actually be as high as 14.3%.

If this is the case, and LGBT people continue to become more comfortable sharing their identities with Gallup, the percent of US adults who identify as LGBT could continue to grow rapidly in the coming years.

 

 

 

Over the past few years, I have devoted many articles to covering LGBT statistics, including the results of Gallup’s earlier surveys.

“Sexual Orientation in the United States” covered the results of Gallup’s 2022 survey.

I covered the results of Gallup’s 2023 survey in Season 2 of LGBT by the Numbers, which includes seven full-length articles.

If you’ve read this far, and you haven’t already read my earlier work, I imagine you would enjoy it as well.

 

 

Another interesting finding from Gallup’s results is that younger Americans are more likely to be LGBT than older Americans.

In the next article, we’ll examine the percent of each generation that identifies as LGBT, and see how these figures have changed over time.

 

 

Additional Umbrella Terms

 

This article is part of Season 3 of LGBT by the Numbers, a series that examines the prevalence of LGBT identities in the United States and around the world.

Season 3 examines the results of the Gender Census, an annual global survey of people with a gender that isn’t strictly male or female.

I primarily focus on the results from 2015 to 2024, for reasons I explained in previous articles.

 

 

We have already examined how the five most common terms from the 2024 Gender Census performed over the past decade.

Today, we’ll examine the next three most popular identity terms: gender non-conforming, genderqueer, and enby.

The most common terms in the Gender Census, including these three, are umbrella terms that collectively describe many groups of people with more specific identities.

 

 

This graph shows the performance of Gender Census identity terms over the past 10 years. 

It includes the sixth through eleventh most popular terms from the 2024 Gender Census.

 

Note the Y-axis of the graph doesn’t begin at 0.

Many graphs in this series have a suppressed 0, so their lines can be more easily seen.

 

I created the graphs in this series using flourish, a website that allows users to create compelling visual aids.

 

  

 

Gender non-conforming

 

I believe “gender non-conforming” can be an unnecessarily confusing term. 

As a stand-alone phrase, “gender non-conforming” doesn’t signify what someone’s gender is, or to which gender they're not conforming.

Absent further clarifying information, I would presume someone using this phrase means they're gender non-conforming relative to their birth gender.

But that wouldn’t necessarily clarify whether they still identify with their birth gender, identify as nonbinary, or identify as binary transgender.

 

Alternatively, the phrase could indicate someone is non-conforming relative to either binary gender. 

But that doesn’t clarify whether they are non-conforming due to gender identity or expression.

 

 

Nevertheless, gender non-conforming is among the more common terms used by people with a gender outside the binary.  

 

 

Gender non-conforming was added as a checkbox option in 2019, when it received 26.2%.

It steadily increased in popularity, until it peaked at 38.5% in ‘23, before declining to 34.9% in ’24.

Gender non-conforming has a range of 12.3%.

 

Gender non-conforming was the sixth most popular option, in the Gender Census, from 2023-24.

 

 

 

 

Genderqueer

 

Genderqueer refers to someone whose gender identity or expression falls outside the boundaries of what is typically considered male or female. 

 

It’s common for nonbinary people to describe themselves as genderqueer, but some people with a binary gender identify as genderqueer as well.

Someone with a binary gender could refer to themselves as genderqueer if they engage in gender expression in a non-conforming way, like femboys and tomboys do.

 

 

Genderqueer was commonly used by nonbinary youth in online videos in 2015, when I first began to understand my gender.

While genderqueer is less commonly used today, I’m still quite fond of the term.

 

I have discussed genderqueer in several previous articles, including The Big Picture, Gender Identity and Biological Sex, Feedback on the Diagram, and Nonbinary Nomenclature. 

 

 

Genderqueer was chosen by 58.3% of respondents in the 2013 Gender Census. 

That year, genderqueer was the most popular term. 

I discussed genderqueer’s performance in the 2013 pilot survey in an earlier article.

 

Genderqueer never again reached the heights of its debut in the first Gender Census.

 

Genderqueer was chosen by 41.2% of respondents in 2015, and steadily declined until it bottomed out at 25.9% in 2020.

Genderqueer bounced back and steadily rose until it peaked at 35.0% in 2023, before declining to 32.6% in 2024.

From 2015-24, genderqueer has had a range of 15.3%.

 

 

From 2015-17, genderqueer was the second most popular identity term.

From 2023-24, genderqueer was the seventh most popular identity term.

 

 

 

Enby

 

Nonbinary can be shortened to NB. 

Once those letters are pronounced aloud, you get enby.

Enby is generally used as a noun, whereas nonbinary is generally used as an adjective.

 

Enby is a cutesy word, and not all nonbinary people use the term to describe themselves.

Twice as many people identified as nonbinary (60.4%) in the 2024 Gender Census, than identified as an Enby (29.4%).

 

 

It’s also worth bearing in mind that Enby might not be an appropriate word to use in all settings, even for those that identify with the term.

I would enjoy being called an enby by a romantic partner or close friend.

I’m glad we have a term for nonbinary people that conveys warmth and playful intimacy.

But it could seem strange in a work or professional setting, depending on the level of formality promoted in the workplace. 

 

 

Enby first appeared as a checkbox in 2016, when it received 15.6%.

Enby peaked in 2021, when it received 37.0%.

Enby received 29.4% in 2024.

Enby has a range of 21.4%.

 

Enby was the eighth most popular identity term, in the Gender Census, from 2023-24.

 

 

Enby has the largest range of any of the checkbox identities in the Gender Census, since 2015.

Over the past 10 years, the rise and partial fall of enby has been the largest change among the results for identity terms in the Gender Census.

 

 

That’s not the only reason Enby’s historical performance has been notable.

Enby is one of only two terms initially chosen by fewer than 20% of respondents, as a checkbox, that was able to subsequently cross that threshold.

The other is transmasculine, which we will discuss in the next article.

Since 2015, no term that received more than 20% in the Gender Census has subsequently fallen below that threshold.

 

 

 

At its peak in 2021, Enby was the third most popular identity term.

This can be seen in the graph below, which begins to push the limit of how many lines can be clearly shown on a single graph.

This graph shows the performance of the eight most popular terms from the 2024 Gender Census over the past decade. 

 

 

I discussed gender non-conforming, genderqueer, and enby in “Nonbinary Nomenclature,” which explored the results of the 2023 Gender Census.

 

 

In the next article, we’ll examine transmasculine and transfeminine, as we continue our tour of nonbinary identities from the Gender Census.