Gay adult
LGBTQ+ Identification in U.S. Now at 7.6%
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Queer identification in the U.S. continues to grow, with 7.6% of U.S. adults now identifying as lesbian, gay, attracted to both genders, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual. The current figure is up from 5.6% four years ago and 3.5% in 2012, Gallup’s first year of measuring sexual orientation and transgender identity.
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These results are based on aggregated information from 2023 Gallup telephone surveys, encompassing interviews with more than 12,000 Americans aged 18 and older. In each survey, Gallup asks respondents whether they identify as heterosexual, lesbian, gay, pansexual, transgender or something else. Overall, 85.6% say they are straight or heterosexual, 7.6% identify with one or more LGBTQ+ groups, and 6.8% decline to respond.
Bisexual adults create up the largest proportion of the LGBTQ+ population -- 4.4% of U.S. adults and 57.3% of LGBTQ+ adults say they are bisexual. Gay and lesbian are the next-most-common identities, each representing slightly over 1% of U.S. adults and roughly one in six LGBTQ+ adults. Slightly less than 1% of U.S. adults and about one in eight LGBT
Reflections on Gay Masculinity
By Justin Natoli, JD, MFT
If market price is a function of supply and demand, then my advice is to start investing in masculinity. That stuff is flying off the shelves. For a variety of reasons—innate and learned—masculinity is like catnip to a significant percentage of lgbtq+ men, and it appears to be in short supply. The appeal of masculinity isn’t breaking news. A speedy glance on Scruff reveals one masc/musc man after another seeking masc-only sexual connections. What sparks my curiosity is the role masculinity plays in our sex lives and what our longing for and fetishizing of masculinity says about the homosexual experience.
I sat down with some ‘masc-only’ gay men recently to understand greater what they notice like when connecting with men they judge to be masculine. These conversations suggested three unique but overlapping roles masculinity plays in sexual relationships with men. One community is drawn to masculine men because they feel protected. Another group says they enjoy feeling dominated by masculine energy. A third group reveals that connecting with masculine men validates their own masculinity and helps them touch more masculine. Period and tim
Responding in Love to an Adult Gay Child
In This Series:
If you’ve ever heard the words “I’m gay” from a son or daughter, the announcement probably came as the shock of a lifetime. You likely cycled through an entire catalog of radical emotions: shock, disbelief, fury, guilt. Then came the questions for you and your spouse: Why did this happen? Where did we fail? And how do we as Christians and loving parents respond to our child’s proclaimed homosexuality?
Stephen Arterburn, best-selling writer and respected Christian psychologist, says many parents of homosexual children withhold adore and affection because they’re afraid to appear approving of the gay lifestyle. The truth is that your child needs unconditional love and acceptance more than ever. Withholding admire will only make a difficult situation worse. Recall that acceptance is not the same thing as approval. Acceptance means acknowledging what is true. It does not mean you must compromise your convictions about what constitutes right and wrong, nor does it mean you condone homosexual behavior and practices.
Chances are your son or daughter wrestled long and hard with the judgment
Adult LGBT Population in the Together States
This report provides estimates of the number and percent of the U.S. adult population that identifies as LGBT, overall, as well as by age. Estimates of LGBT adults at the national, state, and regional levels are included. We rely on BRFSS 2020-2021 data for these estimates. Pooling multiple years of data provides more stable estimates—particularly at the state level.
Combining 2020-2021 BRFSS data, we estimate that 5.5% of U.S. adults detect as LGBT. Further, we estimate that there are almost 13.9 million (13,942,200) LGBT adults in the U.S.
Regions and States
LGBT people reside in all regions of the U.S. (Table 2 and Figure 2). Consistent with the overall population in the Merged States,more LGBT adults live in the South than in any other region. More than half (57.0%) of LGBT people in the U.S. live in the Midwest (21.1%) and South (35.9%), including 2.9 million in the Midwest and 5.0 million in the South. About one-quarter (24.5%) of LGBT adults reside in the West, approximately 3.4 million people. Less than one in five (18.5%) LGBT adults reside in the Northeast (2.6 million).
The percent of adults who recognize as LG