A Better LGBT Total

 

Gallup determined 7.6% of US adults identified as LGBT in 2023.

Gallup conducts one of the best surveys on LGBT identity in the US, and their data is incredibly valuable.

But I believe Gallup slightly undercounts the number of LGBT people in the US, because Gallup’s total doesn’t include all nonbinary and asexual people.

 

Nonbinary refers to people who identify with a gender that isn’t exclusively male or female.

Asexual refers to someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction.

 

I discussed nonbinary identity in, “Gender Identity and Biological Sex,” and I discussed asexual identity in, “Sexual and Romantic Orientations.”

 

 

 

Nonbinary

 

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

Gallup considers respondents LGBT if they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or provide a volunteered response not specifically listed in Gallup’s question.

 

Gallup determined 1% of US adults are nonbinary based on a separate gender question.

Nonbinary respondents who don’t identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender would be counted as LGBT if they provided nonbinary as a volunteered response.

But they wouldn’t be considered LGBT if they didn’t provide a volunteered response.

Personally, I consider nonbinary to be an LGBT identity.

Therefore, I consider all nonbinary people to be LGBT, regardless of whether they also identify as transgender or how they describe their sexuality.

Gallup determined, based on its criteria, that 80% of nonbinary people are LGBT.

This means 20% of nonbinary respondents, or 0.2% of US adults, aren’t included in Gallup’s LGBT total.

This is one of the sources of Gallup’s slight undercount of the total LGBT population in the United States.

 

 

 

Asexual

 

Asexual was one of the terms respondents volunteered in response to Gallup’s LGBT question, even though it wasn’t specifically mentioned.

About 0.1% of US adults submitted Asexual as a volunteered response to Gallup’s question.

I determined 0.3% of US adults identified as asexual in a research study conducted in 2020, where asexual was one of the options available in its sexual orientation question.

I first discussed this study in “Asexuality in the United States.”

If asexual were specifically mentioned in a survey question, rather than as a volunteered response, I believe an additional 0.2% of US adults would identify as asexual, compared to Gallup’s results.

This is the other source of Gallup’s slight undercount, based on the results of the research study mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

Calculating a Better Total

 

If you add the missing nonbinary and asexual numbers to Gallup’s total, 8.0% of US adults identify as LGBT.

About 262 million adults lived in the United States in 2023, according to the US Census.

Based on my calculated total, 21 million US adults are LGBT.

 

 

Last month, I determined about 20 million US adults are LGBT, based on Gallup’s total of 7.6%.

My slightly higher estimate for LGBT identity includes about 1 million more people than Gallup’s total.  

 

 

It’s worth bearing in mind that these figures refer to US adults who are willing to disclose their LGBT identities in public surveys. There could be additional LGBT people who aren’t comfortable sharing that information in a poll.

 

 

 I first attempted to determine the number of LGBT US adults in, “How many Americans are LGBT?” 

I believe my calculated total, discussed above, is the best approximation I have been able to create thus far.

 

 

 

The state closest in size to my calculated LGBT total remains New York, the fourth largest US State.

My calculated total is close to the number of Americans who are exclusively Asian American, based on data from the US Census. 

 

 

 

1. California                                     39.0 Million

2. Texas                                           30.5 Million

3. Florida                                         22.6 Million

 

Asian, alone                                    21.1 Million

Calculated LGBT Total                    21.0 Million

 

4. New York                                    19.6 Million

5. Pennsylvania                              13.0 Million

 

Keep in mind, the figures listed above for state populations and racial categories include all ages, whereas the LGBT total only includes adults.
 

 

 

This would seem like a logical place to conclude my series on the results of Gallup’s LGBT survey.

But there’s still more to explore!

In the next article, we’ll examine line graphs showing the percent of each generation who identified as gay, lesbian, and transgender in each of Gallup’s four most recent annual surveys.

We’ll also compare those graphs to similar ones that appeared earlier in this series for bisexuals and LGBT identity.