(CNSNews.com) — Although U.S. adults think LGBT persons make up nearly 24% of the U.S. population, this is a dramatic overestimation, according to Gallup, which asserts that the LGBT population is in reality closer to 4.5%. Gallup also reports that the percentage of Americans identifying as LGBT is most prevelant among millenials.
In its survey, Gallup asked, “Just your best guess, what percent of Americans today would you say are gay or lesbian?”
From the respondents’ answers, the average was 23.6%. In other words, American adults think LGBT people make up nearly 24% of the population, which is more than 5 times the real percentage of 4.5%.
(Gallup.)
In May 2015, Gallup found that Americans thought LGBTs were 23.2% of the population, and in May 2011, they thought the percentage was 24.6%.
“Americans’ estimate of the proportion of gay people in the U.S. is more than five times Gallup’s more encompassing 2017 estimate that 4.5% of Americans are LGBT, based on respondents’ self-identification as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender,” reported the survey firm.
“[A]ll available estimates of the actual gay and lesbian population in the U.S. are far lower than what the public estimates,” said Gallup, “and no measurement procedure has produced any figures suggesting that more than one out of five Americans are gay or lesbian.”
Overestimations of the LGBT population may be due to their “outsized visibility” in the culture, especially through the media, said Gallup.
(Kena Betancur, Getty Images.)