LGBTQ Americans are coming out at younger and younger ages — though almost one-in-five never have escaped the closet — according to a newly-released Gallup survey.
"We have a really good benchmark on how Americans identity, and this trend is over a decade old now, so we're asking new questions about experiences," Gallup analyst Justin McCarthy told the Bay Area Reporter. "In terms of reports on when they came out, we're really clearly seeing a much younger age people are telling others they are LGBTQ+."
Among all LGBTQ+ Americans, the median age of coming out was 19. For those aged 18-29, the median age was 17. That went up to 26 for those 65 and older — with 8% of them staying in the closet until they were over 50.
"This does track with other trends we've seen with societal acceptance," McCarthy said.
Also decreasing is the median age that LGBTQs realized their sexual orientation and/or gender identity. For all adults the median age was 14, which was also the median age for those 18-29. For the over 65 cohort, the median age was 16, with 9% saying they are unsure when that happened.
"There's still quite a few people still in the closet," McCarthy said. "One-in-five haven't told anyone they're LGBTQ+."
That number was similar in all age groups, ranging from 15% among 18-29-year-olds to 22% in the over 65 cohort.
The exact same percentage of LGBTQ adults and all U.S. adults — 70% — reported acceptance and treatment of LGBTQ people has gotten better, but LGBTQ adults were slightly less likely to agree that things have "gotten a lot better."
That said, 23% of LGBTQ adults said that they've been either frequently or occasionally harassed or treated poorly on account of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
The survey results were from a May 1-15 Gallup Panel survey of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender adults and those who identify as something other than non-heterosexual or cisgender. There are 100,000 members of the Gallup Panel, who are selected to be representative of the entire U.S. adult population.
"Gallup weights samples to correct for unequal selection probability and nonresponse," Gallup stated. "Gallup also weights its final samples to match the U.S. population according to gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, and region. Other adjustments may be made to fit the needs of a specific study. Demographic weighting targets are based on the most recent Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population."
Asked if the data could be broken down by sexual orientation or gender identity, McCarthy said, "I think as we aggregate this data we may be able to see additional populations we didn't have the sample size to support."
Brad Sears, the founding executive director of the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ think tank at UCLA School of Law, told the B.A.R. that "all of it tracks" with the institute's own research.
"Obviously for a while we noticed people are coming out at younger and younger ages," Sears said. "We actually did a study from 2015 to 2019 looking at different generations of LGBTQ people and we saw with each succeeding generation the age of coming out is decreasing."
Sears said that societal change is the reason for that.
"I think what's interesting is that given national media and online culture, there's obviously a very different and supportive environment and a way for people to connect that wasn't available to the older generation, so people may feel more comfortable coming out at younger ages," Sears said, but he added that despite that things may look different on the ground in different parts of the U.S.
"You have a national culture that's supportive, which may or may not be the case in all parts of the country," Sears said. "It makes sense of the issues we're seeing in schools, continued discrimination and bullying."
Sears asserted that many of the people who are not out are bisexual.
"We just finished a survey this year from L.A. county — a relatively supportive environment — but we noticed a number of people not out to any of their friends or immediate family members," Sears said. "Those tended to be people who are bisexual. The highest number of people not out to family members and who didn't have any LGBTQ friends were bisexual men."
Sears said bi men reported a lot of code switching, whereby people adjust their language, behavior, and appearance to fit the dominant culture.
"Dress, appearance, voice," he said. "This isn't a comfortable closet that they're in — it's one they have anxiety about."
Sears said that when surveys find more people identifying as LGBTQ, it's often bisexual or nonbinary people.
"The percent of people identifying as gay or lesbian is fairly flat," he said. "The rapid increases are among bisexuals — particularly bisexual women and people who identify as nonbinary. So when we're saying more and more people are identifying as LGBTQ, it's largely people who are younger and people with those identities."
In fact, as the B.A.R. reported last year, Gallup conducted a survey showing about three-fifths of people identifying as non-heterosexual identified as bisexual.
The Human Rights Campaign and Equality California, the statewide LGBTQ rights group, didn't return requests for comment.
LGBTQ Agenda is an online column that appears weekly. Got a tip on queer news? Contact John Ferrannini at [email protected]
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