How Many LGBT Americans Are There? 9 Million!

The Williams Institute, a UCLA Law School-based academic think tank on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy, has issued a report entitled How Many Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered People Are There? written by Distinguished Scholar Gary Gates.

In the report, Dr. Gates analyzing multiple data sets and national and international surveys which include LGBT people to obtain an estimate of approximately 9 million LGBT Americans, roughly 3.8% of the general population, or the population of the state of New Jersey.

From the executive summary:

 An estimated 3.5% of adults in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual and an estimated 0.3% of adults are transgender.
 This implies that there are approximately 9 million LGBT Americans, a figure roughly equivalent to the population of New Jersey.
 Among adults who identify as LGB, bisexuals comprise a slight majority (1.8% compared to 1.7% who identify as lesbian or gay).
 Women are substantially more likely than men to identify as bisexual.  Bisexuals
comprise more than half of the lesbian and bisexual population among women in eight
of the nine surveys considered in the brief.  Conversely, gay men comprise substantially more than half of gay and bisexual men in seven of the nine surveys.
 Estimates of those who report any lifetime same-sex sexual behavior and any same-sex sexual attraction are substantially higher than estimates of those who identify as LGB. 
An estimated 19 million Americans (8.2%)  report that they have engaged in same-sex
sexual behavior and nearly 25.6 million Americans (11%) acknowledge at least some
same-sex sexual attraction.

This is a very important contribution to the debate about LGBT rights in this country. Interestingly, if one believes in an equivalent "one-drop rule" for sexual orientation, the canonical 10 percent rule looks to be about right!