2025 U.S. LGBTQ+ adult population matches 2024's record; bi identity still most common: Gallup

The proportion of U.S. adults identifying as LGBTQ+ remained steady at 9 percent from 2024 to 2025, according to a new Gallup poll, but that’s still more than double the 3.5 percent who did when Gallup first began measuring this population in 2012.

The 9 percent proportion in 2024 was a record high. Gallup found roughly 7 percent identifying as LGBTQ+ between 2021 and 2023. Bisexuality remains the most common LGBTQ+ identity.

The increase has been driven largely by young adults, Gallup reports. The latest poll shows 23 percent of adults under age 30 identifying as LGBTQ+, compared with 10 percent of those aged 30 to 49 and 3 percent or less among those aged 50 and older.

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LGBTQ+ identification is higher among women than men, largely because women are much more likely to say they are bisexual. LGBTQ+ identity is higher among Democrats than Republicans and more common among city residents than those who live in rural or suburban areas. Percentages are similar across major racial and ethnic groups.

Among LGBTQ+ adults, 58.6 percent told Gallup they are bisexual. There were 17.4 percent identifying as gay, 16 percent as lesbian, 12.1 percent as transgender, and 5.8 percent as something other within the LGBTQ+ population, such as queer or pansexual. The numbers add to more than 100 percent because respondents could choose multiple identities.

Related: American satisfaction with state of LGBTQ+ rights reaches lowest point in over a decade

Among U.S. adults as a whole, 5.3 percent identified as bisexual, 1.6 percent as gay, 1.4 percent as lesbian, 1.1 percent as trans, and 0.5 percent as something else under the LGBTQ+ umbrella. The small proportion of U.S. adults who identify as nonbinary overwhelmingly identify as LGBTQ+, particularly as bisexual or transgender.

“Bisexual identity has consistently been the most common LGBTQ+ identity and has grown sharply since Gallup began measuring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities as separate categories in 2020,” the polling organization reports. That year, 3.1 percent of U.S. adults said they were bisexual. Other LGBTQ+ identities have likewise increased since then.

“Bisexual identification far outpaces gay and lesbian identification among younger adults, but it is on par with gay and lesbian identification among older generations,” Gallup notes.

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Gallup expects the LGBTQ+ percentage to rise in the coming years as more members of Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2012) reach adulthood. Currently, nearly one in four adults in Gen Z identify as something other than heterosexual, and large shares of Gen Z and millennials identifying as bisexual.

The latest results are based on telephone interviews conducted by Gallup in 2025 with more than 13,000 U.S. adults. Gallup asks about sexual orientation and gender identity in every poll it does. The most recent data shows 86 percent of U.S. adults identifying as heterosexual, the 9 percent as LGBTQ+, and 5 percent not responding to the question.