The Young Generation Has Stopped Being Ashamed of It: 22% of American Gen Z Identify as LGBTQ. The Absolute Majority of Them Are Bisexuals

Illustrative photo: Tom Hiddleston, Diego Calva, and Camila Morrone in the series "The Night Manager." Photo: imdb.com

The proportion of Americans who identify with the LGBTQ community has more than doubled over the past decade. While around 3.5% of adult US residents declared such an identity in the early 2010s, now, according to Gallup data, it is 7.6%.

The main driver of these changes has been Generation Z. Among young Americans who have recently entered adulthood, 22.3% identify as LGBTQ — more than one in five. For comparison: among the baby boomer generation — those who are now 70-80 years old — only 2.3% identify as such.

The majority of those who identify as LGBTQ call themselves bisexual. Today, 15% of all adult Generation Z members identify as bisexual, and among those who identify with the LGBTQ community, people with this identity make up more than half — 57.3%.

Young women particularly often report bisexuality. More than one in five Generation Z women (20.7%) can be categorized as bisexual. Among millennial women, about 9% have a bisexual identity.

But changes are also occurring among men. Almost 7% of Gen Z men identify as bisexual — more than double the proportion of those who identify as gay (2.8%). Among millennial men, the proportion of bisexuals and gay men is approximately equal (2.5% and 2.3% respectively). Additionally, more and more young men describe themselves as "mostly heterosexual" rather than exclusively heterosexual.

According to sociologists, it's not just about changing sexual behavior. The younger generation increasingly perceives sexuality less as a set of rigid categories. For many Generation Z individuals, sexual attraction appears more like a spectrum than a division into "heterosexuals" and "homosexuals."

In this, as The Wall Street Journal writes, there is nothing fundamentally new. As early as 1948, Alfred Kinsey, author of the famous report on sexuality, wrote that humanity cannot be divided into two separate groups — heterosexuals and homosexuals. "Not everything in the world is black, and not everything is white," he noted.

However, bisexual behavior does not always align with bisexual identity. According to data from the Pew Research Center, 88% of bisexuals with a steady partner are in heterosexual relationships.

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Illustrative photo. Jacob Anderson (Louis) and Sam Reid (Lestat) in the series "Interview with the Vampire." In recent years, themes of sexual diversity and non-binary identities have increasingly become part of popular culture. Photo: AMCsAnneRice / X

The situation is further complicated by the presence of men who do not consider themselves bisexual but nonetheless feel romantic or sexual attraction to individuals of their own sex.

Psychologist Ritch Savin-Williams, author of the book "Mostly Straight: Sexual Fluidity Among Men", concluded that a significant intermediate group exists between exclusively heterosexual and bisexual men. This refers to individuals who consider themselves heterosexual and are primarily attracted to women, but may also feel some sexual or romantic attraction to men.

A number of studies, including those using physiological indicators such as measuring pupil dilation when viewing erotic images, have shown that such men differ from both exclusively heterosexual and bisexual men. Savin-Williams calls this group "mostly heterosexual" and believes it is much more common than generally thought.

Other studies also indicate that male sexual orientation is not limited to a simple division into two categories. As the authors of a 2020 study noted, male sexuality exists more on a continuum than as a strict dichotomy.

A survey conducted in 2025 even proposed eight different categories of bisexuality — from people who only sometimes feel attraction to their own sex, to those who would like to have such an experience in the future.

As the WSJ notes, representatives of Generation Z are particularly inclined to perceive sexual attraction not as a rigid category, but as a spectrum or scale. They are also more liberal about separating identity from actual behavior, states Jean Twenge, author of the book "Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future."

"For Generation Z, what began as the acceptance of differences, and then evolved into the acceptance of specific identities, has now become a process of completely rejecting labels," Twenge explains. "Their position is: 'I can easily change tomorrow.' And they approach this with absolute naturalness and ease."

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