Gallup’s annual tally of the number of people identifying as bi or other LGBT+ identities is out.
Their research on the US population is fascinating in that it breaks down identity not just as a whole of society but by gender and age cohort – splitting society into groups like “generation X” which allow us to see the impact of social change on people who grew up taking different levels of freedom and social acceptability for granted.
Bisexuality is still winning with young people – and as generations age it’s not showing signs of fading away as a “phase” as the social pressure to conform to both monogamy and sexuality identities based on partner gender reduce.
Gallup note that “Bisexuality is the most common LGBTQ+ status among Generation Z, millennials and Generation X. Fifteen percent of all Generation Z adults — representing more than two-thirds of those with an LGBTQ+ identification — are bisexual.
“In the older generations, LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely, or equally as likely, to say they are gay or lesbian than bisexual.”
Some labels like pan may be under-represented as they were not prompted for but given as ‘other’ answers (marked below as np).
| All adults % |
LGBT+ adults % |
|
|---|---|---|
| Bisexual | 4.4 | 57.3 |
| Lesbian | 1.2 | 15.1 |
| Gay | 1.4 | 18.1 |
| Transgender | 0.9 | 11.8 |
| Pansexual (np) | 0.1 | 1.7 |
| Asexual (np) | 0.1 | 1.3 |
| Queer (np) | <0.1 | 0.1 |
| Other LGBTQ+ (np) | 0.1 | 1.1 |
Overall LGBT identities are more common among younger generations – but compared to previous Gallup US statistics, there is a notable uptick happening with older people perhaps now feeling more able to own labels that involved too many challenges when they were young:
| Age cohort | % identifying as LGBT |
2022 | 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Generation Z (born 1997-2012) | 22.3 | 15 | 11.5 |
| Millennials (born 1981-1996) | 9.8 | 6 | 5.1 |
| Generation X (born 1965-1980) | 4.5 | 1.7 | 1.8 |
| Baby boomers (born 1946-1964) | 2.3 | 0.7 | 0.3 |
| Silent Generation (born 1945 or earlier) | 1.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 |
The gender skew on bisexuality compared with homosexuality remains stark.
2.3% of both men and women identify as lesbian or gay. Trans identity – despite a traditional stereotype of all trans people as being trans women – is also evenly balanced with 0.5% trans women and 0.4% trans men being a meaningless difference statistically.
However when it comes to bisexuality, some 2.1% of men say they are bi – contrasting with 5.7% of women.
Women are also more likely to identify with other ‘niche’ labels like pansexual or polysexual, though again the numbers involved are tiny fractions of a per cent of the wider population.
Gallup reckon 1% of adults in the US now identify as non-binary.
The overall breakdown by age group and sexuality label for 2023 looks like this:
| Generation Z | Millennial | Generation X | Baby Boomers | Silent Generation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % | % | % | % | % | |
| Women | |||||
| Total LGBTQ+ | 28.5 | 12.4 | 4.7 | 1.9 | 0.8 |
| Bisexual | 20.7 | 9.0 | 2.8 | 0.4 | 0.1 |
| Lesbian/Gay | 6.3 | 3.0 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 0.3 |
| Transgender | 2.1 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.4 |
| Other LGBTQ+ | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| Men | |||||
| Total LGBTQ+ | 10.6 | 5.4 | 3.5 | 2.7 | 1.2 |
| Bisexual | 6.9 | 2.5 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 0.2 |
| Lesbian/Gay | 2.9 | 2.4 | 2.3 | 1.9 | 0.9 |
| Transgender | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.0 |
| Other LGBTQ+ | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 |