Gen Z just gets gayer and gayer.
According to a new analysis from Gallup, 23% of American Gen Zers identify as LGBTQ+, the highest proportion of any generation.
Gen Z was also the most likely generation to identify as transgender, with 4.1% of Gen Zers IDing as trans, compared to 1.7% of Millennials and less than 1% of each older generation. That’s more than three times the overall proportion of trans adults in the U.S., which is 1.3%. Breaking things down by gender within Gen Z, 2.6% of women identified as trans compared to 1.4% of men.
The survey also identified the overall proportion of U.S. adults who identify as LGBTQ+: nearly 1 in 10 at 9.3%. That’s nearly triple the share from 2012, when Gallup first surveyed Americans on this topic, and a two-thirds increase from 2020.
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Of that 9.3%, more than half of LGBTQ+ survey respondents identified as bisexual. 5.3% of all U.S. adults reported themselves as bi. In Gen Z specifically, 22.5% of women identified as bi, compared to 7.7% of Gen Z men. (Gen Z is also the only generation where men are more likely to ID as bisexual than gay — only 3.6% of Gen Z men claim the G in LGBTQ+.)
Though these figures are the highest they’ve ever been, they may actually be an underestimate. Dr. Mitchell R. Lunn, a researcher of LGBTQ+ health working at Stanford University, told the New York Times that the current political climate may leave some queer folks afraid of identifying themselves in surveys, and that the numbers may even fall in future years: “I worry that it will push some people to go back into the closet and not be out about their identity anymore.”
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