A new examination of Census Bureau data shows 19%-22% of U.S. women between the ages of 18 and 25 self-identify as bisexual, confirming a startling Gallup survey result from last year that 19.7% of America’s Gen Z is LGBT.
The study was conducted by Dr. Jean Twenge, a psychologist and the author of the forthcoming book “Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents — and What They Mean for America’s Future.” According to her analysis, there are 7 million bisexual girls among the 68 million members of Gen Z.
Dr. Twenge utilized information from the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse study, which conducts routine surveys of more than one million Americans and, unlike the decennial Census, includes questions regarding sexual orientation.
The proportion of all Americans who identify as LGBT has doubled to 7.2% during the last ten years. While Gen Z women are now by far the most publicly bisexual group in the population, just 6.9% of Millennials identify as bisexual, compared to 13.1% of Gen Z.
Many people have questioned the cause of this unusual increase. Social media, according to one notion, could serve as a motivator. However, Ritch Savin-Williams, a professor of developmental psychology at Cornell University who has studied teenage and young adult sexuality for four decades, asserted that he thought destigmatization was encouraging an increasing number of young people to come out.
Since gay marriage became legal, the percentage of Americans who feel that homosexuality should be accepted by society has increased from 51% to 72%, and Gen Z is the first generation to reach adulthood since this change. According to Savin-Williams, the rise in young people identifying as LGBT is a logical outcome.
“It’s not that the absolute number of people increased as a percentage in terms of their internal orientation,” Savin-Wiliams said to the New York Post. “The shift has been in the visibility and the willingness of individuals to express it and to declare it.”
