A Third of Young People Don’t Identify As Straight, According to U.K. Survey

· Updated on May 28, 2018

A third of young people between the ages of 16 and 22 identify as something other than straight, according to a newly published report.

A BBC poll conducted by Ipsos Mori found that just two-thirds of Britons in this age group claimed to be exclusively heterosexual. Nine percent of the young people polled said that they were equally attracted to members of both sexes, while 14 percent reported being primarily attracted to the opposite gender.

Compare this to Baby Boomers, 88 percent of whom claimed to be totally straight. Just one percent of people between the ages of 52 and 71 identified as bisexual.

The survey showed that the younger respondents were, the more likely they were to be sexually fluid. While just eight percent of Gen-Xers (ages 38 to 51) claim to be attracted to members of both sexes, more than twice as many millennials identified as bisexual in the BBC reportat 18 percent.

The polling group tapped 3,000 U.K. residents for the survey.

These findings, which were published Tuesday, are just the most recent report showing that today’s youth are the gayest generation. A 2015 poll from YouGov found that nearly half of Brits in the 18-24 age bracketor 49 percentclaimed that they weren’t totally straight.

Although surveys show that increasing numbers of people are coming out as bisexual, this population also faces extraordinary challenges.

Despite being the largest segment of the LGBTQ community, bisexuals face a high rate of mental health issues due to the lingering stigma around sexual fluidity. Bisexual women, for instance, were twice as likely as their heterosexual counterparts to experience mood disorders. A 2013 study from the University of Pittsburgh found that 15 percent of people don’t believe bisexuality exists.

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