Gen Z women are more likely to identify as bisexual but still embrace lesbian label: study

Gen Z women aren't trying to cancel the lesbian label — they're just more likely to identify as bisexual.

Among 913,253 international users of the queer women’s and nonbinary dating app Zoe (71.1 percent of whom identify as female), 48.3 percent identify as lesbian, 39.8 percent as bisexual, 6.6 percent as pansexual, 3.4 percent as queer, 1.2 percent as gay, and 0.7 percent as asexual, according to a new report in Demographic Research.

Related: Gen Z Is the Most-Queer Generation. They Also Want to Be Labeled the Least

Gen Z users — those born between 1997 and 2006 — were slightly more likely to identify as bisexual than lesbian, with 45 percent of users ages 20 to 29 using the bisexual label compared to 42.2 percent who used lesbian. Those identifying as queer also decreased with age, as older users were more likely to identify as gay.

“Younger generations are showing us that sexuality is not a fixed category — it’s a spectrum,” Francesco Rampazzo, lead author and Lecturer in Social Statistics at the University of Manchester, said in a statement. “Across the world, more young people are comfortable describing their identities in diverse and fluid ways.”

A separate survey from Gallup in 2024 found that out of the 9.3 percent of U.S. adults that identify as LGBTQ+, 56 percent said they were bisexual, 21 percent said they were gay, 15 percent said lesbian, 14 percent said transgender, and 6 percent said something else. The figures total more than 100 percent because the survey allowed respondents to report multiple LGBTQ+ identities.

Another 2023 poll from Business Insider and YouGov found that Gen Z is more likely to identify as queer than a specific label. Gen Z is also more likely to embrace the bisexual label, as opposed to "binary terms that suggest they like only one type of person," with 13 percent of Gen Z identifying as bisexual compared to 7 percent of millennials, 4 percent of Gen X, and only 1 percent of Boomers.

Related: Less GOP and more LGBT — Gen Z is more likely to be queer than Republican, survey reveals

The report in Demographic Research is among the first to examine identity on a global scale, collecting user data from over 122 countries across all continents (excluding Antarctica). Data from nations where same-sex sexual relations are criminalized were not included in the study to prevent potential risks to users in those countries.

"Our study is a reminder that technology isn’t just transforming how people meet — it is reshaping how we understand ourselves and each other," Rampazzo said.