What percent of the us is gay 2015

Executive Summary

Throughout 2023, PRRI interviewed more than 22,000 adults as part of its American Ethics Atlas, allowing for the ability to provide a detailed profile of the demographic, religious, and political characteristics of LGBTQ Americans. As in years past, this analysis measures Americans’ attitudes on LGBTQ rights across all 50 states on three key policies: nondiscrimination protections, religiously based service refusals, and queer marriage. This year’s describe also includes new investigation of the intersection between Christian nationalist views and LGBTQ attitudes in each state.

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

• More than one in five young Americans (18-29 years) identify as LGBTQ (22%). One in ten people ages 30-49 (10%), 6% of people between 50 and 64 years, and 3% of people 65 years or older recognize as LGBTQ. Twenty-four percent of Gen Z Americans (aged 18 to 25) identify as LGBTQ.
• A plurality of LGBTQ Americans are Democrats (46%); nearly six in ten LGBTQ Americans consider themselves liberal politically (58%)

  What’s Behind the Rapid Rise in LGBTQ Identity?

  Newsletter March 6, 2025

  Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields

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

  The steady climb in LGBTQ self among the common 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 boost among young adults, particularly young women. In less than a decade, the percentage of little women who recognize as LGBTQ has more than tripled.

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

  LGBT Populations

  This map shows the estimated raw number of LGBT people (ages 13+) living in each express. 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 knowledge, 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 mirror estimates of the LGBTQ adult population living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Estimates of the LGBTQ mature person 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, homosexual, bisexual, or gender diverse, 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
  
  

  3Demography and Public Attitudes of Sexual and Gender Diverse Populations

  This chapter reviews demographic patterns and trends among sexual and gender diverse (SGD) populations. In any assessment of the demographic characteristics of these groups, visibility and the coming out process are critical considerations in interpretations of findings, particularly those focused on historical trends. Nearly all research in this area has focused on sexual orientation or same-sex sexual behavior or relationships. More recently and to a lesser extent there has been demographic research on transgender populations. There are still almost no demographic data on people with differences of sex development (DSD) in the general population or on people who might identify as intersex. This is a significant gap in terms of spotting and understanding the well-being of intersex populations.

  This chapter focuses on overall prevalence estimates of sexual and gender diverse populations and provides some detail on geographic variation, age, race and ethnicity, and child-rearing practices of these populations. This does not symbolize an exhaustive list of important demographic traits. Knowledge
  

  A new Gallup poll suggests most Americans vastly overestimate how large the queer community is in the United States.

  According to the survey, released Thursday, a majority of people think close to one in four (23.6 percent) people are gay or lesbian.

  Americans have continuously overestimated the size of the same-sex attracted population in recent years—estimating 24.6 percent in 2011 and 23.2 percent in 2015. Only about 4.5% of Americans self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to an earlier Gallup study. But in this most recent poll, conducted in May, just 9 percent of respondents estimated under 5 percent. (Another 11 percent guessed between 5 and 10 percent.)

  "Exactly who makes up the LGBT society and how this organization should be measured is a subject of some debate," Gallup pointed out in 2012. "There are a number of ways to measure lesbian, same-sex attracted, and bisexual orientation, and transgender status. Sexual orientation can be assessed by measuring identity as successfully as sexual behaviors and attractions."

  Women estimated that about three in 10 Americans (29.7 percent) are same-sex attracted or lesbian, the extreme of any demographic, and much higher than men thought (17.4 percen