Nearly one in five LGBTQ+ Americans are still in the closet, says new study 

A new survey of queer adults in America comes with good news and bad news for the state of the LGBTQ+ community. On the bright side, folks are feeling comfortable coming out of the closet at younger and younger ages — but that’s only if they feel comfortable coming out at all.

The study was conducted by Gallup, which surveyed American adults who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and non-heterosexual or cisgender about their experiences as queer folks in America.

One major takeaway from the study is that nearly one in five LGBTQ+ American adults (18%) have never come out to anyone in their lives. That figure is much lower for gay and lesbian people alone: only 5% have never come out to anyone. Who, then, is driving up the numbers? 

According to the data, nearly one in four bisexual Americans have never come out to anyone at 23%. (Due to a small sample size, there’s no equivalent data for transgender Americans.)

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Why do bisexual folks feel less comfortable coming out than other members of the queer community? It likely has to do with lingering stigma against bi people and bi erasure, though hopefully that number will soon fall to match the coming out rates of other queer Americans.

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Overall, though, the coming out figures for folks in America are still positive. 71% reported coming out before age 30, including 57% who came out by the age of 22. Each generation reported coming out at younger and younger ages on average, with those currently ages 18 to 29 coming out at a median age of 17, compared to a median of 20 for 30- to 49-year-olds, a median of 23 for 50- to 64-year-olds, and a median of 26 for those 65 and older.

Nearly half of all queer Americans (48%) said they knew they were LGBTQ+ by age 14, and nearly three quarters (72%) knew by age 18. 70% of LGBTQ+ adults said they felt American society’s acceptance and treatment of LGBTQ+ people has improved over the past 10 years. 

“Americans, like residents of other countries, have significantly changed in terms of the way they view LGBTQ+ people, including their perceptions of the morality of same-sex relations and views on LGBTQ+ rights in the U.S. — and LGBTQ+ people themselves acknowledge this increase in acceptance,” read’s the study’s conclusion.

“As society has shifted in its views and treatment of this group, it has had little bearing on the timing when LGBTQ+ Americans became aware of their own personal identity, but it has had a great impact on when these individuals have chosen to share their identity with others,” it continues. “LGBTQ+ seniors came out nearly a decade later in life than today’s young LGBTQ+ adults.”