3.2% of Americans Identify as LGBT, According to New Gallup Poll

[Shana A]

3.2% of Americans Identify as LGBT, According to New Gallup Poll
A Gallup poll identified 3.2% of Americans as LGBT and discovered surprising trends in demographics.
BY Daniel Reynolds
October 18 2012 8:43 PM ET

http://www.advocate.com/society/2012/10/18/32-percent-americans-identify-lgbt

According to a recent Gallup poll, 3.2% of American adults self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

In the poll, released Thursday, the percentage was determined from a series of 121,290 interviews between June 1 and September 30. Gallup claims it is the largest survey of its kind to date.

The survey also found that nonwhite individuals are more likely to identify as LGBT. African-Americans (4.6%), Asian-Americans (4.3%), and Hispanics (4.0%), all exceeded the non-Hispanic white percentage of 3.2% LGBT.

[...]

But the author of the Gallup report, Gary Gates, determined that the findings should cut against sterotypes associated with LGBT people.

"Contemporary media often think of LGBT people as disproportionately white, male, urban, and pretty wealthy," he said. "But this data reveal that relative to the general population, the LGBT population has a larger proportion of nonwhite people and clearly is not overly wealthy."

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Poll challenges U.S. perceptions of LGBTs

Published: Oct. 18, 2012 at 10:11 AM

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/10/18/Poll-challenges-US-perceptions-of-LGBTs/UPI-81261350569497/

PRINCETON, N.J., Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Some 3.4 percent of Americans say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered, the largest survey of U.S. sexual identity ever done indicates.

Findings in the survey of 120,000 people conflicts with media stereotypes about the LGBT community as predominantly white, highly educated and very wealthy, polling organization Gallup said in releasing the poll Thursday.

The report is "the first step in analyzing the largest population-based survey of LGBT Americans ever conducted," said Gary J. Gates, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and the author of the report.

[opheliaxen]

Phone survey wasn't the best way to do this.  I don't think a lot of lgbt people are going to respond to a phone call about their gender or sexual orientation.  Especially trans folk

[Sia]

Phone survey wasn't the best way to do this.  I don't think a lot of lgbt people are going to respond to a phone call about their gender or sexual orientation.  Especially trans folk

Exactly. The 3.4% are people who :

-own a landline or cellphone (a disproportionate percentage of homeless people are LGBT)
-are willing to answer a phone survey
-are out to themselves
-are out to the hypothetical spouse or family member(s) who were in the room during the phone call
-self-identify as LGBT (lots of people identify as straight but are some shade of bisexual, and a good number of people whose identity/history would fit under the trans* umbrella don't identify as such)
-don't mind disclosing their LGBT status to an anonymous voice over the phone (and given the dire consequences that coming out or being outed can have...)

So, that leaves out a good number of people.

I also found it interesting that 4.4% of people answered "don't know/refuse to answer". How many people who really are straight/cis would answer that? It's not like it comes attached to a stigma or requires a good amount of soul-searching, that's pretty much beaten into our heads as the default (if not only) option since birth.

[Jamie D]

The Gallup result is in line with the recent study issued by the Williams Institute at UCLA.

"About 9 million people in the United States identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, according to a UCLA study released Thursday.

"The estimate, which translates to about 3.5% of adults as LGBT and 0.3% of adults as transgender, was created by the Williams Institute at UCLA's School of Law and argues that any estimate of the population is difficult because there are insufficient and inconsistent national surveys."
- Los Angeles Times, 4-12-2011