Nearly one in 10 Americans now identify as LGBTQ+, according to Gallup — almost double the percentage recorded just four years ago.
In 2020, 5.6% percent of U.S. adults identified as LGBTQ+ on the Gallup survey, and today, 9.3% of adults in the U.S. identify as part of the community. That number represents a one-point bump from just a year ago, and a staggering increase from the 3.5% first registered in Gallup’s inaugural 2012 poll measuring the size of the LGBTQ+ community. The rise in Americans openly identifying as LGBTQ+ is largely due to an uptick in people who identify as bisexual, especially among Generation Z, according to Gallup’s breakdowns of the data.
More than one in five Gen Z adults (23.1%) now identify as LGBTQ+, per Gallup, followed by about 14% of millennials. Older generations, including Gen X, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation, all identify as LGBTQ+ at rates of 5% or below, tapering off to only 1.8% for those born in or before 1945.
Of the 900 people surveyed who identified as LGBTQ+, more than half — 56% — indicated that they were bisexual. In fact, more than half of both Gen Z (59%) and millennial (52%) queer people identified as bisexual. These numbers are consistent with past polling that has shown that bisexual people are an “invisible majority” within the queer community.
The percentage of trans U.S. adults has also increased when compared with the survey’s 2024 results. In last year’s poll, fewer than one percent (0.9%) of American adults identified as trans, while this year, 1.3% of respondents self-identified as such. Likewise, last year, 11.8% of the LGBTQ+ population identified as trans, while this year that percentage was recorded at approximately 14%.
The poll notes that LGBTQ+ identification has a strong correlation with being a woman, being politically liberal, and living in an urban area. For example, 21% of liberals, compared to 3% of conservatives, identified as queer or trans, while, overall, 10% of women identify as part of the community compared to 6% of men.
Gallup based its results on interviews with more than 14,000 U.S. adults. Respondents were asked to identify as straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or something else, and are allowed to indicate multiple identities when responding.
As the percentage of Americans who identify as LGBTQ+ rises, the statistic inches closer to a famous and controversial claim based on the work of human sexuality researcher Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s. Kinsey estimated that about one in 10 Americans were predominantly homosexual — a figure that was colloquially flattened over the years to become the oft-repeated claim that 10% of the population is gay. Kinsey, however, did not believe identity was easily fixed or categorized and often, instead, spoke about behaviors. For example, through surveys and interviews conducted with thousands ordinary Americans, Kinsey estimated that more than a third of men had a same-sex sexual experience in their lives, while at least one in five women had had the same.
The results of Gallup’s poll suggests a population increasingly likely to be at odds with the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies, which include a January executive order making it the official position of the U.S. government that there are only two genders defined at birth. That memo is part of a recent conservative efforts to deny and regulate the existence of trans people nationwide. In 2024, a record number of bills aimed at limiting trans freedoms, including access to gender-affirming health care, were introduced in state legislatures.
February 24, 1895 José Martí, a Cuban revolutionary, poet, journalist and teacher, began the liberation struggle against Spanish control. He had been forced out of Cuba repeatedly (to Spain) for his opposition to colonial rule, and spent 15 years in the U.S. organizing the revolution just before returning home. José Martí
Cultivate a White Rose By José Martí I cultivate a white rose In July as in January For the sincere friend Who gives me his hand frankly. And for the cruel person who tears out the heart with which I live, I cultivate neither nettles nor thorns: I cultivate a white rose. read about José Martí
February 24, 1965 District 1199 of the health care workers’ union (now Service Employees International Union) in New York City became the first U.S. labor union to officially oppose the war in Vietnam.
February 24, 1966 Father and son, Tom and Barry Bondhus, united in their opposition to the draft. Photo: Pete Hohn, Minneapolis Tribune Barry Bondhus, classified 1-A (fully eligible) for the draft during the Vietnam War, dumped two buckets of manure in file drawers at the Elk River, Minnesota, draft board. A farmer’s son (one of ten brothers) from Big Lake who acted with the full support of his parents, he was charged with destruction of government property. His father, Tom, wrote a declaration of war on the government over their insistence on forcing his boys into the army. He said he was prepared to die to protect his sons but eager to negotiate.“My opinion is that since our constitution guarantees: Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness; and because the army denies all three; the draft is not lawful.” Barry, sometimes referred to as “the Big Lake One,” who listed his race as “human” on the draft forms, served 14 months in jail and prison for his action. Perspective on the case and the Bondhus family more than 50 years later
February 24, 1972 Daniel Berrigan (one of the “Catonsville 9”) was released after 18 months of a three-year term. He went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where his brother Phil Berrigan was on trial, also for anti-Vietnam War activities [see February 21, 1972]. Investigation of a Flame, a film about the Berrigan brothers and the Catonsville 9
February 24, 1983 A congressional commission released a report condemning the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, calling it a “grave injustice.” Read more
February 24, 2012 Syndicated talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh began a three-broadcast-day-long campaign attacking Georgetown Law School student Sandra Fluke (rhymes with book) for her testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.
The previous week she had been invited to testify on the subject of federal requirements for contraceptive coverage in health insurance policies before the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Instead, Committee Chair Darrell Issa (R-CA) declared her testimony inappropriate (she is past president of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice), instead hearing from five men. Committee member Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney asked, “Where are the women?” Fluke talked about the high cost of contraception and the non-pregnancy-related importance of such medications for some women. Limbaugh spent six hours on air demeaning her personally and derided her as a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Watch Sandra Fluke’s testimony:
This videos are hard to watch, I had to fast forward over the part showing the man harassing these people and acting like a deranged gang thug, which maga is. It is going to get worse as more of these vigilantes think they have a right to be enforcers of their own opinions. We need to make sure that every event is punished and made public to stop these people from acting this way. Hugs
A south Carolina man is in jail for illegally detaining people he thought were “illegals”
Canceling any non white male centric holiday in the name of DEI? Sounds about Project 2025 of them.
Wanting lower grocery prices is good; believing a liar is not.
Deporting his supporters: They got your vote, they don’t need you anymore.
Looks like DOGE is coming for the Department of Labor next.
An amendment from Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Shawnee Democrat, to modify the bill’s language so best interests of a child in foster or adoptive care remained the top priority at DCF was rejected by the House. She said the amendment was necessary because the bill was drafted in a way that could force a subsection of children in Kansas to endure more trauma.
“You have to remember why children come into the system in the first place,” Ruiz said. “They come into the system because of abuse and neglect, and it comes in so many forms.”
Ruiz told House colleagues that Kansas youth were physically beaten and emotionally traumatized by parents and church leaders who wanted children to adhere to a certain sexual orientation or gender identity. Some kids were expected to “pray away the gay,” she said.
Others were compelled to undergo so-called conversion therapy, she said. It has little basis in science, but proposes to erase a person’s gender identity or sexuality — usually to conform to ideals of other people.
“This bill opens up the door to one of the most horrible forms of therapy that any human being can be exposed to,” Ruiz said. (Snip-MORE)
TOPEKA (KSNT) – Kansas’ attorney general and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) have signed a deal to assist federal immigration forces in the Sunflower State.
Danedri Herbert with the Kansas Office of the Attorney General said in a press release on Monday, Feb. 17 that Attorney General Kris Kobach and the KBI have signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This will allow KBI agents to work alongside Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove immigrants who are residing in Kansas illegally.
A limited number of KBI agents will receive ICE training that authorizes the agents to arrest immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, serve and execute warrants for some immigration violations and issue immigration detainers, according to the press release. Herbert said a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes states and political subdivisions of a state to enter into agreements like this. (snip-MORE)
February 21, 1848 “The Communist Manifesto,” written by 29-year-old Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, was published in London (in German) by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League. Friedrich Engels Karl Marx The political pamphlet — arguably one of the most influential in history — proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles,” and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever. Read the Manifesto
February 21, 1965 Malcolm X, an African-American nationalist and religious leader, was shot and killed in New York City by Black Muslims with whom he had broken the year before, as he began to address his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City’s Washington Heights. His home had been firebombed just a few days earlier. He was 39. Radio story on the late Manning Marable’s biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention More on on Malcolm’s assassination MalcolmX.com “In 1964, after his break with Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, and following his trips to Africa and to Mecca, Malcolm was seriously questioning black nationalism. He was also beginning to recognize that MLK’s non-violent methods, far from being passive, were actually creating more change than the separatism of the Nation of Islam. In this same period MLK was beginning to recognize that Malcolm was advocating self-defense, not violence. In March Malcolm and Martin encountered one another by chance at a news conference in Washington, D.C. Subsequently Malcolm spoke at several rallies in support of the civil rights movement, and in February 1965, two weeks before his assassination, he went to Selma to meet with King.” –Grace Lee Boggs ” You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”–“Prospects for Freedom in 1965,” speech, January 7 1965.
February 21, 1972 The trial began for Father Philip Berrigan and six other activists (the “Harrisburg Seven”) in Pennsylvania. They were charged with conspiring in an alleged plot to kidnap Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Proceedings later ended in a mistrial. Daniel Berrigan, above, and his brother Philip in the documentary, “Investigation of a Flame.” The film focuses on the Catonsville action. Remembering Fr. Philip Berrigan
February 21, 1975 Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell, Mitchell aide Robert Mardian, and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 21⁄2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up. They were variously convicted of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, fraud, and perjury. See the new film, Frost/Nixon, for perspective on some of the issues behind Watergate Charlie Rose interview with Peter Morgan, the screenwriter (and author of what was originally a play) and Michael Sheen and Frank Langella, the lead actors
February 21, 2011 Two Libyan Air Force fighter pilots defected to the Mediterranean island of Malta rather than carry out orders they had received to bomb civilian countrymen. Two helicopters with seven others landed in Malta to escape the violence. Colonel Muammar Qadaffi had ordered the attacks in attempt to quell the growing protests against his 42-year dictatorship. Libya’s ambassadors to China, India, Indonesia and Poland, as well as Libya’s representative to the Arab League and most, if not all, of its mission at the United Nations resigned the same day.
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