Poll: Gay People Coming Out Earlier

The age at which people in the U.K. are coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender has gone from 37 to 17 in about two generations, according to a survey released Monday by gay rights group Stonewall.

A poll of 1,500 people who are out found that responders over the age of 60 came out, on average, at the age of 37, The Guardian reports. People currently in their 30s came out when they were 21, and those aged 18-34 came out by the time they were 17.

The survey, which was nonscientific, was conducted across social networking sites.

Stonewall's Ruth Hunt estimates people are coming out earlier because of the higher visibility of LGBT people on television and public life.

"Older people may not have had the language for it, or necessarily seen other people they knew they were like," Hunt told The Guardian. "What we're seeing is an explosion of role models and people talking about being gay, so people are more able to associate what they're feeling with something they can see."