Number of Americans identifying as LGBT+ doubles in last decade, poll reveals

(REUTERS)

The percentage of people who identify as LGBT+ in the US has doubled in the last decade, a new poll shows.

A Gallup poll that asks Americans about their sexual orientation found that 7.1 per cent of the US identified as LGBT+ in 2021, up from 3.5 per cent in the same poll taken in 2012. The poll is aggregated across the year, and surverys 12,000 adults.

Of the trends seen in the poll, people in younger generations were more likely to identify as a member of the LGBT+ community compared with their older counterparts

In the US in 2021, the poll showed a fifth (20.8 per cent) of Generation Z (people who were born between 1997-2003) identified as LGBT+, compared with just 10.5 per cent of Millenianls (born between 1981 and 1996), 4.2 per cent of those in Generation X (1965-1980), 2.6 per cent of Baby Boomers (1946-1964), and a tiny 0.8 percent of people born before 1946.

While the data show an increase in the number people who are members of the LGBT+ community, Gallup editor Jeffrey Jones suggested that the statistics may point to the fact that society is more accepting of people’s sexual orientation than in the past, so people are more likely to be open about who they are attracted to.

“Younger people are growing up in an environment where being gay, lesbian or bisexual is not as taboo as it was in the past,” Mr Jones said in an interview with NBC News.

“So they may just feel more comfortable telling an interviewer in a telephone survey how they describe themselves. In the past, people would maybe be more reluctant.”