Gen Zers’ unprecedented embrace of LGBT identities has driven the percentage of U.S. adults who say they’re transgender or not heterosexual to a record high, according to a new poll.
SO WHAT
The explosion of LGBT activism and culture isn’t your imagination.
WHAT THE CHART SHOWS
The Gallup poll, released Thursday, found that one in five Gen Z adults self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual — twice the rate as among millennials and four times the rate as among Gen Xers.
Transgender is the second most popular identity with Gen Zers (2.1%), right behind gay (2.5%) and ahead of lesbian (2.0%), per Gallup.
- Gen Z women are about three times more likely than men to identify as LGBT.
Overall, 7.1% of Americans over age 18 claim an LGBT identity, up from 3.5% in 2012, Gallup reported.
- That number is expected to keep rising: Up to 15% of U.S. adults could identity as LGBT “in the not too distant future” as Gen Zers and millennials achieve demographic dominance, Jeff Jones, the author of the Gallup poll, told Axios.
WHY IT MATTERS
Andrew Sullivan, a gay activist and journalist, wrote in response to last year’s Gallup poll on LGBT identity that the rise of transgenderism “is probably due [partly] to the sheer trendiness of being trans among the young.”
- “I’d argue, that we should disaggregate the ‘LGBT’ construction so actual gay people can be measured more accurately, instead of lumping us in with vague categories that include lots of people in heterosexual relationships,” Sullivan said.
- “But does this mean we should panic about increasing gender fluidity in the younger generation? Again, I really don’t think so. The sex binary is intrinsic to the survival of our species. That’s just biology and human reproductive strategy. Aggregate sex differences — physical, psychological, behavioral — are deeply rooted in our species’ DNA. They’re not going away because a bunch of Foucault disciples want them too.”