The LGBTQ population is growing in the U.S. In 2017, an estimated 4.5 percent of American adults identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, a new study from Gallup reveals.
Each year, Gallup interviews thousands of Americans and asks them about their sexuality and gender identity. After Gallup interviewed over 340,000 people, the organization came up with the 4.5 estimate for 2017, which translates to over 11 million queer Americans.
That number has been steadily rising, too. Gallup first began tracking America’s LGBTQ population in 2012, when only 3.5 percent identified as LGBTQ. In 2016, that number hit 4.1 percent. But the .4 percent increase between 2016 and 2017 is one of the highest on record, with most Gallup reports only seeing a .1 or .2 percent increase between years.
READ MORE
- How big is the transgender population, really?
- Here’s what it really means to be asexual
- Womyn, womxn, and women: The difference between the terms
As for why, Gallup says the LGBTQ population increase is “driven primarily” by millennials.
“The percentage of millennials who identify as LGBT expanded from 7.3 percent to 8.1 percent from 2016 to 2017, and is up from 5.8 percent in 2012,” Gallup concluded in its report. “By contrast, the LGBT percentage in Generation X (those born from 1965 to 1979) was up only .2 percent from 2016 to 2017.”
For more information, read Gallup’s full report here.