Americans greatly overestimate the percentage of the U.S. population that is gay or lesbian, according to new poll results released by Gallup.
Gallup reports: “U.S. adults estimate that nearly one in four Americans (23.6%) are gay or lesbian. Gallup has previously found that Americans have greatly overestimated the U.S. gay population, recording similar average estimates of 24.6% in 2011 and 23.2% in 2015. In each of the three polls in which Gallup has asked this question, a majority of Americans estimated this population to be 20% or greater. 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.”
So why are the results dramatically different from the reality. Writes Gallup: “Overestimations of the nation's gay population may in part be due to the group's outsized visibility. An annual report by GLAAD, an LGBT advocacy group, found that representation of LGBT people as television series regulars on broadcast primetime scripted programming reached an all-time high of 8.8% in the 2018-2019 television season, which is nearly twice Gallup's estimate of the actual population. But Americans have overestimated the sizes of other minority groups in the past as well, including U.S. blacks and Hispanics.”
Read the full poll results HERE.
