15 surprising statistics about today's LGBTQ people

In the US, 86.7% of adults say they are straight, and the remaining say they identify as LGBTQ or do not answer the question, according to a Gallup poll from 2021.

Although 5.6% may seem low for the number of LGBTQ people in the US, the percentage is up from 2017's 4.5%.

According to Gallup, the remainder of the LGBTQ population is broken down as follows: 24.5% identify as gay, 11.7% identify as lesbian, and 11.3% identify as transgender.

A 2017 study by Voices of Youth Count, an initiative at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, found that LGBTQ youth had a 120% higher risk of being homeless.

LGBTQ youth make up just 7% of the youth population in the US, but they make up 40% of the youth homeless population, according to True Colors United.

The Trevor Project found that the pandemic in 2020 made the living situation for 80% of LGBTQ youth more stressful, leading to mental health issues.

According to a 2021 report by The Trevor Project, more than 50% of LGBTQ youth experienced discrimination within the past year.

Of the 13%, 83% said they went through conversion therapy when they were younger than 18, according to The Trevor Project.

Of Black youth who identify as LGBTQ, 82% said they had at least one supportive person in their life, according to a 2020 report by The Trevor Project, which also found that Black transgender youth who had supportive family members had lower rates of attempted suicide.

The Center for American Progress reported in 2020 that LGBTQ people choose where they will work, worry about what to wear, and even stay away from public places to avoid discrimination.

In 2021, the Human Rights Campaign found that 71% of these companies also include transgender-inclusive benefits.

Three in 10 transgender people have avoided seeking medical treatment because of the medical field's lack of understanding of trans issues, according to the Center for American Progress. In fact, one in three transgender people said they had to teach their doctors about being trans.

In 2019, the US Census Bureau found that 1.5% of households with couples in the US are same-sex households. Of those, 18.9% of married same-sex households have children, and 12.1% of unmarried same-sex households have children.

Cisgender people's poverty rate is 15.7%, while LGBTQ people have a poverty rate of 21.6%, according to a 2019 report by UCLA's Williams Institute.

According to a 2019 survey by the Human Rights Campaign, 46% of transgender people of color said they didn't vote because their ID had the wrong name, gender, or photo.

In 2013, the Human Rights Campaign started tracking the number of transgender people killed in the US, and last year, was the deadliest. Just five months into 2021, the Human Rights Campaign reports that at least 27 transgender or gender non-conforming people have been killed.

In 2018, the CDC found that of the new HIV diagnoses, 37% were Black men who identify as gay or bisexual as opposed to 27% of white men who identify as gay or bisexual.