LGBTQ identification holds at 9%, according to Gallup – Map: Google Gemini
About 9% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual, according to new polling from Gallup.
That figure is unchanged from 2024 — but remains higher than the 7% who identified as LGBTQ between 2021 and 2023. The findings are based on combined data from more than 13,000 telephone interviews conducted nationwide in 2025.
Overall, 86% of adults identified as heterosexual, 9% as LGBTQ, and 5% declined to answer questions about sexual orientation or gender identity.
Bisexual people make up the largest share of the LGBTQ population. About 5.3% of all U.S. adults — roughly 58.6% of LGBTQ respondents — identify as bisexual. Another 1.6% identify as gay (17.4% of the LGBTQ community), 1.4% as lesbian (about 16%), and 1.1% as transgender (12.1%). An additional 0.5% identify as another identity within the LGBTQ spectrum, such as queer or pansexual.
Bisexual identification has risen sharply since 2020, when 3.1% of adults said they were bisexual. Other LGBTQ identities have also ticked up in recent years.
As in previous Gallup analyses, younger generations are driving the increase. Nearly one in four adults ages 18 to 29 — 23% — identify as LGBTQ, including 16% who identify as bisexual. In that age group, 3% identify as transgender, 2.9% as lesbian, and 2.5% as gay.
Among adults ages 30 to 49, 10.4% identify as LGBTQ — 5.6% bisexual, 2.1% gay, 1.5% lesbian, and 1.3% transgender. Identification drops sharply among older Americans. Just 3.1% of those ages 50 to 64 and 2.3% of those 65 and older identify as LGBTQ. Fewer than 0.5% of adults over 50 identify as transgender.
Women are more likely than men to identify as LGBTQ — largely because women are more likely to identify as bisexual. Overall, 10.5% of women and 5.6% of men identify as LGBTQ. Among nonbinary respondents, 86.2% identify as LGBTQ.
Political affiliation also correlates strongly with LGBTQ identification. About 14.2% of Democrats and 10.3% of independents identify as LGBTQ, compared to just 1.9% of Republicans — a gap Gallup attributes in part to partisan differences over same-sex marriage, nondiscrimination laws, and related rights issues.
People of color are slightly more likely than white adults to identify as LGBTQ. While 8.3% of white adults identify as LGBTQ, the figure rises to 9.9% among Black adults and 10.7% among Hispanic adults. The differences are largely driven by bisexual identification rates. When it comes to gender identity, 1.6% of Hispanic adults identify as transgender, compared to 1% of white adults and 0.7% of Black adults.
Geography also plays a role. City residents are the most likely to identify as LGBTQ, at 10.9% — including 6.4% who identify as bisexual, 2% as gay, 1.8% as lesbian, and 1.2% as transgender.
By comparison, 8.7% of suburban residents identify as LGBTQ, while 7% of those living in small towns or rural areas do so. Notably, the percentage of small-town and rural residents who identify as transgender — 1.2% — matches the rate among city residents, even as overall LGBTQ identification remains lower outside urban areas.
Little more than a year ago, Kamala Harris narrowly lost the presidential election. She may have suffered a swing-state sweep, but Donald Trump's 49.8 percent win was hardly a mandate. Consider Franklin D. Roosevelt won his first term with a bit more than 57 percent. That's a mandate.
But lose, she did. And I cried twice. Some frail dudes might not like admitting that, but I'm not so self-loathing that I'm compelled to deny human emotions. Initially, maybe a day after the vote, talking to a neighbor on our building's shared roof, my throat seized mid-sentence and I excused myself. I may have plenty to cry about, but I don't ever want it to make me the center of attention.
A New York City subway rider was slashed in the face earlier this month by an unidentified assailant who took offense to him kissing his transgender partner. The attack occurred around 7:50 p.m. on January 10 aboard a southbound No. 6 train as it traveled through Manhattan.
According to police, the 28-year-old victim was kissing his partner when the suspect began shouting anti-gay slurs. The verbal abuse quickly escalated into a physical confrontation. During the argument, the suspect struck the victim with a sharp object, causing a deep laceration on the right side of his face, according to New York CW affiliate WPIX.
A 47-year-old Colorado man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to run over a lesbian couple with his vehicle and ramming their truck as they tried to escape.
As reported by CBS News, Vitalie Oprea took his parents' vehicle without permission on February 19, 2023, and was driving near the intersection of East Arapahoe Road and South Liverpool Street in Aurora when he spotted two women kissing.
Witnesses told police that Oprea became enraged, yelling at the couple and making obscene gestures before making a U-turn into oncoming traffic and driving toward them.
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