The LGBTQ+ population has doubled in the last decade

The percentage of U.S. adults that identifies in some way as part of the LGBTQ+ population has doubled in the last ten years, according to a new poll from Gallup.

The poll found that 7.2 percent of adults in the U.S. identify as something other than heterosexual and cisgender in 2022. In 2012, the percentage was 3.5.

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Much of the gain comes from younger adults. 19.7 percent of adults in Generation Z identified as LGBTQ+ in the poll, while 11.2 percent of millennials, 3.3 percent of Generation X, 2.7 percent of Baby Boomers, and 1.7 percent of Silent Generation respondents said the same.

Most of the non-straight respondents said that they were bisexual; 4.2 percent of respondents said they were bi. 1.4 percent identified as gay men and 1 percent as lesbians. 0.6 percent of U.S. adults identified as transgender, and 0.1 percent identified as pansexual, asexual, queer, and “other LGBT.”

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Generation Z’s LGBTQ+ population is even more bisexual than the general population. 58% of LGBTQ+ adults in the survey said that they were bisexual, while 66.4 percent of Generation Z LGBTQ+ adults said they were bisexual. Gay men outnumbered bisexual people of all genders among Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation in the survey, while bisexual people outnumbered every other group in the younger three generations.

Last year, the same survey found that 7.1 percent of the population is LGBTQ+, showing an upward trend and that last year’s number wasn’t a fluke. 5.6 percent of U.S. adults said they were LGBTQ+ in 2020 and 4.5 percent said the same in 2017, the previous year that Gallup conducted the survey.