More young people identify as LGBTQ+ than ever before, poll finds

More young people are out than ever before, and most people who identify as LGBTQ+ are attracted to more than one gender, according to new data. A study released Wednesday by Gallup found that 5.6 percent of the U.S. population now identifies as LGBTQ+, up from 4.5 percent in 2017. Jeff Jones, a senior editor of the poll, said that the jump was driven adult people ages 18 to 23. One in six adult members of Generation Z (born from 1997 to 2002) identified themselves as LGBTQ+, which Jones said was “nearly twice” the rate of millennials, and “certainly much larger” than older generations. Just over 1 percent of people born before 1946 said they were LGBTQ+. “I think there’s, along with greater acceptance, a greater willingness to identify yourself that way than maybe in the past,” Jones said. “But we don’t know how much of that is contributing as opposed to just becoming something that’s more common in the population.”