In June every year, Americans celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride Month, marking the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising of 1969 – a series of encounters between police and LGBTQ+ protesters in New York City.
Pew Research Center previously has explored topics including the experiences and views of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans and transgender and nonbinary Americans. The Center has also studied public attitudes about same-sex marriage in the United States. This analysis highlights key facts about the largest group among those who identify as LGBTQ+: bisexual Americans.
Overall, 4% of U.S. adults say they identify as bisexual, according to an August 2023 survey by the Center. A similar share (3%) say they identify as gay or lesbian.
1. Among adults who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, meanwhile, bisexual Americans are the largest group, accounting for 60% of the total. (This survey did not ask respondents if they were transgender, so transgender adults are not included in this group. Other Center research has estimated the share of Americans who are transgender or nonbinary.)
2. Women are more likely than men to say they identify as bisexual. Among women in the U.S., 5% identify as bisexual, compared with 2% of men. In turn, men are more likely than women to identify as gay or lesbian (4% vs. 2%), according to the same August 2023 survey. (There was not a large enough sample size to look at those who do not describe themselves as either a man or a woman.)
3. Younger adults are more likely than older Americans to describe themselves as bisexual. Some 11% of U.S. adults under 30 identify as bisexual, the August 2023 survey finds. This is far more than the 5% of adults ages 30 to 49 and the 1% of adults ages 50 and older who say the same.
4. Gender differences in bisexual identification persist even among the youngest adults. Among adults under 30, 16% of women and 5% of men identify as bisexual.
5. Roughly a third of bisexual adults (36%) are parents of children of any age. This is about half as many as the share of straight Americans who are parents (63%). Among gay or lesbian Americans, 22% are parents, according to the August 2023 survey. (This may reflect the fact that most bisexual adults who are married or living with a partner have a partner of the opposite gender.)
6. Bisexual people are less likely than gay or lesbian Americans to be “out” to the important people in their lives. In a 2019 Center analysis of data from a 2017 Stanford University survey, we found that only 19% of those who identify as bisexual say all or most of the important people in their lives are aware of their sexual orientation.
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