Stats about the lgbtq community
LGBTIQ+ people: statistics
LGBTIQ+ stands for woman loving woman, gay, bisexual, transsexual, intersex, queer or questioning. We’ve used the term LGBTIQ+ on this page, but we realise this doesn’t cover all the ways people define their gender or sexuality. Stonewall has a glossary that lists many more terms.
Mental health problems such as depression, self-harm, alcohol and drug abuse and suicidal thoughts can impact anyone, but they’re more common among people who are LGBTIQ+.
Being LGBTIQ+ doesn’t cause these problems. But some things LGBTIQ+ people depart through can impact their mental health, such as discrimination, homophobia or transphobia, social isolation, rejection, and difficult experiences of coming out.
It’s important to write down that embracing creature LGBTIQ+ can hold a positive impact on someone’s well-being too. It might mean they possess more confidence, a sense of belonging to a society, feelings of relief and self-acceptance, and better relationships with friends and family.
What issues might LGBTIQ+ people face?
Mental health issues
Being LGBTIQ+ doesn’t automatically mean someone will have mental health issues but may mean they’re at higher peril of experiencing impoverished mental he
Understanding Poverty in the LGBTQ+ Community
Poverty generally refers to a lack of basic necessities, resources and income, though its exact definition is often widely debated and measured in a variety of ways. A common way to measure poverty is to look at a family’s income and size, in order to judge whether it has enough income to support that family. This approach is employed by the Census Bureau, who each year identifies family size-specific income thresholds, below which, a family is considered to be living in poverty.
According to a 2019 Williams Institute analysis of Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data, which is the best accessible evidence on poverty in the LGBTQ+ community, Queer adults in the Joined States are significantly more likely to be living in poverty than their straight and cisgender counterparts. Overall, more than one in five LGBTQ+ adults (22%) are living in poverty, compared to an estimated 16% of their straight and cisgender counterparts. Among LGBTQ+ adults, poverty further differs across sexual orientation, gender, and race. Almost three in ten transgender adults (29%), as well as almost three in ten cisgender double attraction
LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Now at 7.6%
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- LGBTQ+ identification in the U.S. continues to increase, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, gender diverse, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual. The current figure is up from 5.6% four years ago and 3.5% in 2012, Gallup’s first year of measuring sexual orientation and transgender identity.
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These results are based on aggregated data from 2023 Gallup telephone surveys, encompassing interviews with more than 12,000 Americans aged 18 and older. In each survey, Gallup asks respondents whether they identify as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, pansexual, transgender or something else. Overall, 85.6% say they are straight or heterosexual, 7.6% identify with one or more LGBTQ+ groups, and 6.8% decline to respond.
Bisexual adults make up the largest proportion of the LGBTQ+ population -- 4.4% of U.S. adults and 57.3% of Queer adults say they are bisexual. Gay and woman loving woman are the next-most-common identities, each representing slightly over 1% of U.S. adults and roughly one in six LGBTQ+ adults. Slightly less than 1% of U.S. adults and about one in eight LGBT
LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Rises to 9.3%
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup’s latest update on LGBTQ+ identification finds 9.3% of U.S. adults identifying as lesbian, gay, double attraction, transgender or something other than heterosexual in 2024. This represents an raise of more than a percentage show versus the prior estimate, from 2023. Longer term, the figure has nearly doubled since 2020 and is up from 3.5% in 2012, when Gallup first measured it.
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LGBTQ+ identification is increasing as younger generations of Americans access adulthood and are much more likely than older generations to say they are something other than heterosexual. More than one in five Gen Z adults -- those born between 1997 and 2006, who were between the ages of 18 and 27 in 2024 -- name as LGBTQ+. Each older generation of adults, from millennials to the Silent Generation, has successively lower rates of identification, down to 1.8% among the oldest Americans, those born before 1946.
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LGBTQ+ identification rates among young people contain also increased, from an average 18.8% of Gen Z adults in 2020 through 2022 to an average of 22.7% over the past two years.
Gallup has
Adult LGBT Population in the United States
This report provides estimates of the number and percent of the U.S. adult population that identifies as LGBT, overall, as well as by age. Estimates of LGBT adults at the national, state, and regional levels are included. We rely on BRFSS 2020-2021 statistics for these estimates. Pooling multiple years of statistics provides more stable estimates—particularly at the state level.
Combining 2020-2021 BRFSS data, we estimate that 5.5% of U.S. adults identify as LGBT. Further, we estimate that there are almost 13.9 million (13,942,200) LGBT adults in the U.S.
Regions and States
LGBT people reside in all regions of the U.S. (Table 2 and Figure 2). Consistent with the overall population in the United States,more LGBT adults live in the South than in any other region. More than half (57.0%) of LGBT people in the U.S. live in the Midwest (21.1%) and South (35.9%), including 2.9 million in the Midwest and 5.0 million in the South. About one-quarter (24.5%) of LGBT adults reside in the West, approximately 3.4 million people. Less than one in five (18.5%) LGBT adults reside in the Northeast (2.6 million).
The percent of adults who identify as LGBT