this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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[–] JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone 38 points 23 hours ago (12 children)

Iirc only 10% of people are 100% straight or 100% gay, 80% are somewhere on the bi/mspec spectrum. Many of these people will identify as straight for various reasons.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (7 children)

https://news.gallup.com/poll/702206/lgbtq-identification-holds.aspx

Gallup estimates that 9% of U.S. adults personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual. This percentage is essentially unchanged from last year but remains more than double the 3.5% from 2012, the first year Gallup measured LGBTQ+ incidence. The current figure is also higher than readings of roughly 7% between 2021 and 2023.

Only 9% of US adults are not straight, of that 9%, more than half are bisexual:

You can get a sense of how many people really are not straight by how the younger generations and women disclose, with 23% of 18 - 29 year old adults identifying as some LGBT+ label compared to much lower numbers for older adults (down to 2% for 65+ year olds), and over 10% for women compared to half of that (5%) for men:

So predictably we can expect older adults and men are much less likely to be aware of their sexuality or to be honest or to disclose it (due to social stigma, hermeneutical injustice, etc.).

Even so, it's a lopsided figure still where it's more like 20% of folks are not cis and straight and 80% are cis and straight.

[–] RamenJunkie@midwest.social 2 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

They didn't say 80% of people would admit it openly.

[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 11 hours ago

right, but how do they know 80% of people aren't straight, then? the question is about evidence and epistemic grounds

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