LGBT Population in the US is 9 Million........

LGBT population is 9 million, researchers say

 

There are about 9 million LGBT individuals in the United States, says The Williams Institute, a sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy think tank.
About 8 million adults are lesbian, gay or bisexual, or about 3.5 percent of the population. About 700,000 people identify as transgender. This is significantly lower than the common understanding of the gay population as being 10 percent of the U.S. population; but Dr. Gary Gates, the study author, has pointed out that the count depends on how people define “gay.” He told About.com:
“If you mean people who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual in a survey, then the answer is that it’s likely not one in 10, but closer to one in 20. A recent government survey found that 4 percent of adults aged 18-45 identified as ‘homosexual’ or ‘bisexual.’ A similar proportion of voters identify as GLB. If you define gay as having same-sex attractions or behaviors, you do get higher proportions that are a bit closer to the one in 10 figure.”
The new study is available at http://www2.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/pdf/How-many-people-are-LGBT-Final.pdf

Gates said in a statement that the new Williams numbers support the call for more LGBT inclusion in federal statistics from the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies who released an analysis of LGBT health research.
Gates said, “The surveys highlighted in this report demonstrate the usefulness of sexual orientation and gender identity questions on large-scale national population-based surveys. Better data can provide the building blocks for critical information to understand the lives of the 9 million LGBT Americans who have been historically marginalized in both society and research.”
Among other findings from the study:
•       Bisexuals are a slight majority; 1.7 percent of adults identify as lesbian or gay while 1.8 percent identify as bisexual.
•       Women are substantially more likely than men to identify as bisexual.
•       Those who report any lifetime same-sex sexual behavior and any same-sex sexual attraction are substantially higher than those identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual.  An estimated 19 million Americans (8.2 percent) report that they have engaged in same-sex sexual behavior and nearly 25.6 million Americans (11 percent) acknowledge at least some same-sex sexual attraction.