What percentage of humans are gay
The ‘Global Closet’ is Huge—Vast Majority of World’s Woman loving woman, Gay, Bisexual Population Mask Orientation, YSPH Study Finds
The vast majority of the world’s sexual minority population — an estimated 83 percent of those who identify as lesbian, same-sex attracted or bisexual — preserve their orientation hidden from all or most of the people in their lives, according to a new study by the Yale School of Widespread Health that could contain major implications for global public health.
Concealing one’s sexual orientation can lead to significant mental and physical health issues, increased healthcare costs and a dampening of the public public presence necessary for advancing matching rights, said John Pachankis, Ph.D., associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health. He co-authored the study with Richard Bränström, an associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and study affiliate at Yale.
Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the study is believed to be the first attempt to quantify the size of the “global closet” in request to gauge its general health impact.
“Given rapidly increasing acceptance of sexual minorities in some countries, it might be easy to assume that most sexual minorities are
What’s Behind the Rapid Ascend in LGBTQ Identity?
Newsletter Parade 6, 2025
Daniel A. Cox, Jae Grace, Avery Shields
Since 2012, Gallup has tracked the size of America’s LGBTQ population. For the first few years, there was not much news to report. The percentage of Americans who identified as gay, lesbian, double attraction, transgender, or queer was relatively low and inching up slowly year over year. Recently, the pace has sped up. Gallup’s newest report recorded the single largest one-year enlarge in LGBTQ identity. In 2024, nearly one in ten (9.3 percent) Americans identify as LGBTQ.
The firm rise in LGBTQ persona among the public is worth noting, but it’s not the most crucial part of the story. Most of the uptick in LGBTQ identity over the past decade is due to a dramatic increase among young adults, particularly young women. In less than a decade, the percentage of adolescent women who identify as LGBTQ has more than tripled.
The gender gap in LGBTQ identity has exploded as well. A decade earlier, young women were only slightly more likely to identify as LGBTQ than young men. For instance, in 2015, 10 percent of young women and six percent of young men identified as
LGBT Identification in U.S. Ticks Up to 7.1%
Story Highlights
- LGBT identification up from 5.6% in 2020
- One in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBT
- Bisexual identification is most common
Learn more in Gallup’s 2024 LGBTQ+ update.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The percentage of U.S. adults who self-identify as lesbian, gay, double attraction, transgender or something other than heterosexual has increased to a new lofty of 7.1%, which is double the percentage from 2012, when Gallup first measured it.
Gallup asks Americans whether they personally identify as straight or heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual person, or transgender as part of the demographic information it collects on all U.S. telephone surveys. Respondents can also volunteer any other sexual orientation or gender identity they prefer. In addition to the 7.1% of U.S. adults who consider themselves to be an LGBT identity, 86.3% say they are straight or heterosexual, and 6.6% perform not offer an opinion. The results are based on aggregated 2021 numbers, encompassing interviews with more than 12,000 U.S. adults.
Line graph. Americans' Self-Identification as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual person, Transgender or Something Other than Heterosexual.
What Percent of the Population is Gay? More Than You Think
There may never be a time when people will accurately retort surveys, but at least survey givers are getting better at tricking us into being honest
What percentage of the population considers themselves gay? This number has always been challenging to pin down: sexuality is fluid, and plenty of people still perceive pressured to hide their sexual orientation. But a new study has tried, and come up with a number that’s higher than most.
According to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, about 20 percent of the population is attracted to their own gender. That’s nearly double the usual estimates of about 10 percent. The authors define that their methodology might have something to carry out with it:
Participants were randomly assigned to either a “best practices method” that was computer-based and provides privacy and anonymity, or to a “veiled elicitation method” that further conceals individual responses. Answers in the veiled method preclude inference about any particular individual, but can be used to accurately estimate statistics about the population. Comparing the two methods shows sexuality-related questions r
Adult LGBT Population in the United States
This report provides estimates of the number and percent of the U.S. senior 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 information for these estimates. Pooling multiple years of data provides more stable estimates—particularly at the mention level.
Combining 2020-2021 BRFSS data, we estimate that 5.5% of U.S. adults spot 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. reside 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 stay in the Northeast (2.6 million).
The percent of adults who identify as LGBT