In 2023, 7.6 percent of adults surveyed in the United States stated they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). This is an increase from 2012, when 3.5 percent of surveyed adults identified as LGBT. These four categories are among the most common sexual orientations and gender identities outside cis-heterosexuals.

Differences across ages and genders 

Zooming in, it is possible to see how the share of people identifying as LGBT changed considerably according to different demographics. Only two percent of Baby Boomers, indeed, reported being part of the LGBT community. On the other hand, among Generation Z individuals, this share reached almost 16 percent. Moreover, surveys suggest that women were more likely to identify as LGBT than men.

An ever-understanding society 

The fact that an increasing amount of people feel free and safe to openly identify as LGBT might be a consequence of the improved acceptance of the different sexual orientations and genders by the American people at large. While in 2001 more than half of U.S. citizens considered homosexual relationships to be morally wrong, 20 years later this percentage dropped to 30 percent. Support for same-sex marriage has also been consistently increasing, even among traditionally conservative political groups. Despite this, it is important to remember that every year hundreds of people are still victims of hate crimes in the United States simply because of their gender or sexual orientation.

Worldwide, **** in 10 respondents support LGBT people being open about their sexual orientation or gender identity with everyone. In a global survey conducted in 2024, ** percent of respondents stated this. In addition, ** percent of interviewees supported openly lesbian, gay and bisexual athletes to be part of sports teams.

According to a global survey conducted in 2021, three in 10 respondents had at least once spoken out against someone who was being prejudiced against LGBT+ people. In addition, some 13 percent attended a public event in support of LGBT+ people, e.g. a Pride march.

The graph illustrates the number of hate crimes against gay people in the United States from 1991 to 2025. The x-axis represents the years, spanning from '91 to '25, while the y-axis indicates the annual number of hate crimes. Over this 35-year period, the number of crimes increased from a low of 294 in 1991 to a high of 1,183 in 2022. Notable figures include 561 crimes in 1992, a peak of 991 in 2001, and a significant rise in the final year. The data exhibits a general upward trend with fluctuations throughout the years, including periods of decline and subsequent increases. This information is presented in a line graph format, effectively highlighting the long-term rise and the variability in hate crimes against gay individuals across the United States.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the Gay population over the last 20 plus years. It lists the population for each year, along with the year on year change in population, as well as the change in percentage terms for each year. The dataset can be utilized to understand the population change of Gay across the last two decades. For example, using this dataset, we can identify if the population is declining or increasing. If there is a change, when the population peaked, or if it is still growing and has not reached its peak. We can also compare the trend with the overall trend of United States population over the same period of time.

Key observations

In 2023, the population of Gay was 116, a 4.13% decrease year-by-year from 2022. Previously, in 2022, Gay population was 121, an increase of 5.22% compared to a population of 115 in 2021. Over the last 20 plus years, between 2000 and 2023, population of Gay decreased by 37. In this period, the peak population was 153 in the year 2000. The numbers suggest that the population has already reached its peak and is showing a trend of decline. Source: U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP).

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP).

Data Coverage:

• From 2000 to 2023

Variables / Data Columns

• Year: This column displays the data year (Measured annually and for years 2000 to 2023)
• Population: The population for the specific year for the Gay is shown in this column.
• Year on Year Change: This column displays the change in Gay population for each year compared to the previous year.
• Change in Percent: This column displays the year on year change as a percentage. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for Gay Population by Year. You can refer the same here

This dataset contains information on the locations and types of services provided by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community health centers in the United States. Health services captured within the dataset include: General medical services; pharmacy services; STD/HIV services (i.e. prevention, testing, treatment, counseling, etc.); individual, group, couples, and family counseling; peer support groups; 12-step programs; psychiatric services; anti-violence programming; and wellness programs and services (e.g. healthy eating, active living, cancer support, and other healthy living programs and support groups). Additional categories are included for organizations whose health service did not fit within the above categories. LGBT community centers that operated a physical health clinic were also identified, and were defined as clinical spaces operated by trained and licensed healthcare personnel. In all, 435 records were created during the search for LGBT community health centers. Of these 435 records, 129 (29.7%) did not meet the criteria to be defined as an LGBT community center. The remaining 306 LGBT community center service sites were operated by 219 independent LGBT community centers. Of those, 213 (69.6%) were identified as LGBT community health center service sites, which were operated by 147 independent LGBT community health centers. Data was collected between September – December, 2015 via online search.

LGBT+ rights are human rights that all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other people outside traditional sexuality and gender categories have. But in practice, these rights are often not protected to the same extent as the rights of straight and cisgender people.

Among others, LGBT+ rights include: physical integrity rights, such as not being executed for their sexuality or gender and not being subjected to conversion therapies; social rights, such as changing their legal gender, being sexually intimate, marrying, and adopting children with people of the same sex; economic rights such as not being discriminated at work; and political rights, such as being able to advocate for themselves and their communities publicly.

The protection of these rights allows LGBT+ people to live the lives they want and to thrive in them.

On this page, you can find data and visualizations on how the protection of LGBT+ rights has changed over time, and how it differs across countries.

In 2024, 14.2 percent of Millennials in the United States stated that they identify as LGBTQ+, while in 2012, less than six percent of respondents from the same generation said the same. Members of Generation Z were the most likely to identify as LGBTQ+, at over 23 percent.

This report presents findings on the health and health-related behaviours of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) population in England. These are analysed by age, sex and ethnicity. The data are based on a representative sample of adults, aged 16 and over, who participated in the Health Survey for England from 2011–2018. 2% of adults surveyed in 2011-2018 identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) The Health Survey for England series was designed to monitor trends in the health, and health related behaviours, of adults and children in England.

The aim of this study was to identify discourses on access to and quality of comprehensive care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people adopted by doctors working in the Family Health Strategy. This article reflects upon how these discourses influence the provision of healthcare to LGBT population. Fifteen doctors from Uberlândia and Belo Horizonte, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, participated in the study. The analysis of the interviews was underpinned by the principles of social constructionism and based on the following analytical categories: the “no difference discourse”, “don’t know discourse”, “don’t want discourse”. Insights were gained into how these discourses prompt the silencing of issues related to the health status of LGBT people, alienating them from comprehensive universal healthcare. We conclude that to improve care provision for this population, healthcare providers need to change their approach. In this respect, training is urgently needed to improve the accessibility and delivery of comprehensive health services to LGBT people.

Stats NZ introduced questions on sexual identity and gender to HES for the year ended June 2021, to help provide a more accurate and inclusive picture of New Zealanders that, amongst other dimensions, would reflect the diversity of genders and sexual identities in Aotearoa.

This table presents a socio-demographic and socio-economic statistical profile of the population aged 15 and older by sexual orientation, geographic region, sex and age group. The characteristics included are: marital status, presence of children under 12 in the household, education, employment, household income, Indigenous identity, belonging to a population group designated as a visible minority, language(s) spoken at home, and place of residence (urban/rural). These estimates are obtained from Canadian Community Health Survey, 2015 to 2018 pooled data.

This report, Coming out in the Kingdom: Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Cambodia, is an output of the LGBT Rights Project implemented by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights. The Report uses the LGBT terminology to discuss the situation of LGBT people in Cambodia, it is important to bear in mind that such terminology is new for Cambodian society, including LGBT individuals themselves, who may not identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bi‐sexual or transgender (as discussed in Section 2 of this Report). The concepts of sexual orientation and gender identitythat have developed in the West may not do justice to the flexible way sexuality is perceived in Cambodia. Accordingly, another challenge to advancing LGBT rights in Cambodia is finding the appropriate language to use when engaging in dialogue with Cambodians about sexual orientation and gender identity.

Over the 2015-2018 period, nearly ******* people aged over ** defined themselves as something other than heterosexual in Canada: ******* identified as lesbian or gay, while ******* identified as bisexual. The provinces with the largest number of non-heterosexuals people were Ontario and Quebec, which are also the most populous provinces in the country. In addition, with the exception of Quebec, bisexual people outnumbered lesbian or gay people in all provinces.

Dataset used in the study 'Speech Acoustic Features: A Comparison of Gay Men, Heterosexual Men, and Heterosexual Women' by Suire, A., Tognetti, A., Durand, V., Raymond, M., & Barkat-Defradas, M. (2020). Along with the dataset is a word file that describes all the variables in it. For additional information, please contact A. Suire (alexandresuire@hotmail.fr) or A. Tognetti (arnaud.tognetti@gmail.com).

Context

FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) conducted an online survey to identify how lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people living in the European Union and Croatia experience the fulfilment of their fundamental rights. The evidence produced by the survey will support the development of more effective laws and policies to fight discrimination, violence and harassment, improving equal treatment across society. The need for such an EU-wide survey became evident after the publication in 2009 of the first FRA report on homophobia and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity, which highlighted the absence of comparable data. The European Commission then requested FRA to collect comparable data across the EU on this issue. FRA organised the data collection in the form of an online survey covering all EU Member States and Croatia. The respondents were persons aged 18 years and over, who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, anonymously. The survey was made available online, from April to July 2012, in all 23 official EU languages (except Irish) plus Catalan, Croatian, Luxembourgish, Russian and Turkish. In total, 93,079 LGBT persons completed the survey. FRA’s inhouse experts designed the survey which was implemented by Gallup, one of the market leaders in large-scale surveys. In addition, civil society organisations including ILGA-Europe (European Region of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association) and Transgender Europe (TGEU) provided advice on how to best approach LGBT people.

More about methodology of the survey can be found in EU LGBT survey Technical report. Methodology, online survey, questionnaire and sample.

Content

Data set consist of 5 .csv files that represent 5 blocks of questions: Daily Life, Discrimination, Violence and Harassment, Rights Awareness, Transgender Specific Questions.

The schema of all the tables is identical:

• CountryCode - name of the country
• subset - Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual women, Bisexual men or Transgender (for Transgender Specific Questions table the value is only Transgender)
• question_code - unique code ID for the question
• question_label - full question text
• answer - answer given
• percentage
• notes - [0]: small sample size; [1]: NA due to small sample size; [2]: missing value

Acknowledgements

Main results performed by FRA

Inspiration

Various of questions can be asked: do LGBT people feel safe in countries they live in? Do LGBT people where to go if someone discriminate their rights? Is there work/in-house harassment in against LGBT people?

Banner photo by Sharon McCutcheon from Pexels

Context

Every year, along with the State-Sponsored Homophobia report, ILGA World publishes also maps of sexual orientation laws in the world.

https://ilga.org/maps-sexual-orientation-laws

Content

A useful tool for LGB human rights defenders, these images expose the arbitrariness of persecutory laws, and starkly indicate the absence of positive law in most parts of the world.

https://ilga.org/maps-sexual-orientation-laws

Acknowledgements

https://ilga.org/maps-sexual-orientation-laws

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Inspiration

LGBTQIA community.

"The negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). The prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and ignorance, and is often related to religious beliefs against LGBTQIA community." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophobia

The survey asked lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people whether they had experienced discrimination, violence, verbal abuse or hate speech on the grounds of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The results reflect the experiences of more than 93,000 individuals who completed the online survey across Europe.

About this dataset

Context

The dataset tabulates the Non-Hispanic population of Gay by race. It includes the distribution of the Non-Hispanic population of Gay across various race categories as identified by the Census Bureau. The dataset can be utilized to understand the Non-Hispanic population distribution of Gay across relevant racial categories.

Key observations

Of the Non-Hispanic population in Gay, the largest racial group is White alone with a population of 75 (98.68% of the total Non-Hispanic population).

Content

When available, the data consists of estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) 2019-2023 5-Year Estimates.

Racial categories include:

• White
• Black or African American
• American Indian and Alaska Native
• Asian
• Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander
• Some other race
• Two or more races (multiracial)

Variables / Data Columns

• Race: This column displays the racial categories (for Non-Hispanic) for the Gay
• Population: The population of the racial category (for Non-Hispanic) in the Gay is shown in this column.
• % of Total Population: This column displays the percentage distribution of each race as a proportion of Gay total Non-Hispanic population. Please note that the sum of all percentages may not equal one due to rounding of values.

Good to know

Margin of Error

Data in the dataset are based on the estimates and are subject to sampling variability and thus a margin of error. Neilsberg Research recommends using caution when presening these estimates in your research.

Custom data

If you do need custom data for any of your research project, report or presentation, you can contact our research staff at research@neilsberg.com for a feasibility of a custom tabulation on a fee-for-service basis.

Inspiration

Neilsberg Research Team curates, analyze and publishes demographics and economic data from a variety of public and proprietary sources, each of which often includes multiple surveys and programs. The large majority of Neilsberg Research aggregated datasets and insights is made available for free download at https://www.neilsberg.com/research/.

Recommended for further research

This dataset is a part of the main dataset for Gay Population by Race & Ethnicity. You can refer the same here

The EU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Survey (EU LGBT) was conducted by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). It is the first ever EU-wide online survey to establish an overview concerning the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people (18 years or older) and their experiences with regard to fundamental rights in the 28 EU Member States. Up until now, there has been very little comparable data collected across the EU about the everyday experiences of LGBT people with respect to discrimination, and lot of the available information is limited to occasional news reports and court judgements. As the first EU-wide survey of its kind, the results support the development of equal treatment policies for LGBT people in the European Union and set the agenda for years to come. Based on the survey results, national and European policy makers, as well as non-governmental organisations, are able to better target their advocacy strategies and activities to support LGBT communities to live and express themselves freely in a non-discriminatory environment. The survey was completely anonymous (no additional data on the participants and their sessions were logged in any way). The survey data collection operated by Gallup Europe, a professional survey and consultancy firm. In order to ensure that the survey delivers evidence needed for policy making, the EU LGBT Survey counted on the participation of a large and diverse group of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people from each country. Hence, it was vitally important for the success of the survey that FRA and Gallup worked together with civil society organisations to reach a wide audience and raise awareness concerning the survey, including participants emailing the survey, sharing it through social media or simply inviting LGBT friends to take part.

More information can be found on the FRA website