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Abstract

This essay overviews some of the major themes that have emerged from the sociological study of sexual identities (e.g., heterosexual/straight and LGBQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer)) over the past several decades. Only a minority of countries have representative data available about sexual identification, although it is now available for the first time in certain countries, including Brazil and Japan. Although the prevalence of LGBQ identification varies, it is far higher in the Unites States than anywhere else, and the gender gap is larger as well. The primary reason why the Unites States is an outlier is because young American women have such high rates of LGBQ, and especially bisexual, identification. A uniquely strong link between left-wing ideology and LGBQ identity in the Unites States may help explain this trend. Other work has examined identity-behavior discordance among heterosexuals, the demography of emerging sexual identities such as asexual, and secondary sexual identities such as “daddy” and “bear” among gay men. While there is extensive work about LGBQ life in the Unites States and to a lesser extent in other parts of the Western world, LGBQ life in other global regions is underrepresented in the literature.

Keywords

sexual identity surveys LGBT lesbian gay bisexual discordance

Over the past several decades, the study of sexuality broadly—and sexual identity specifically—has exploded. Sexual identity refers to labels such as heterosexual/straight, gay/lesbian, and bisexual. These labels are related to, but distinct from, both attraction and sexual behavior, and reflect factors such as partnership status, attitudes, and embeddedness in certain communities. This essay will draw attention to some of the major themes in existing scholarship and areas of future research. First, it discusses the measurement of sexual identities in countries around the world and how sexual identity varies by gender and age. Notably, the United States is an outlier on this topic. The article then discusses variation within identity categories, such as heterosexuals who report same-sex contact; emerging sexual identities, such as asexual; and the diversity of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ)¹ life. Lastly, it overviews secondary sexual identities, such as “daddy,” which are adopted by few people in the general population yet are important for members of some communities.

Measurement of Sexual Identities

In most countries, representative surveys do not ask about sexual identification, whereas others ask about sexual behavior or attraction rather than identity. For example, a recent survey from Statistics Netherlands asked about sexual attraction but not sexual identity (Kennis 2024). Questions about attraction, behavior, and identity should be asked together because they can differ from one another and because each characteristic (or intersections of them) may be independently associated with meaningful outcomes. Similarly, census data allows for the examination of same-sex couples (e.g., in Canada (Yang 2024) and Finland (Ponkilainen et al. 2024)). It is also important to measure individual identity since LGBQ people are more likely to be single than heterosexuals (Brown 2020; ONS 2025), and singles are demographically distinct from people who are partnered.²

Some people change their identities over time, making measurement challenging (Campbell 2022). In the United Kingdom, 6.6 percent of respondents changed their identity between survey waves in 2011 to 2013 and 2017 to 2019, including 3.3 percent who previously identified as heterosexual (Hu and Denier 2023). Equivalent figures are 16.1 percent, 56.8 percent, and 85.4 percent for people who had previously identified as gay/lesbian, bisexual, or other, respectively (Hu and Denier 2023), indicating considerable differences in identity stability by category.

Estimates for sexual identity change in the Unites States are typically higher than in other countries: 8.7 percent of Americans changed their identity between 2013 and 2019 (Mittleman 2023). Whereas gender differences in the likelihood to shift identities is minimal in the United Kingdom (5.7 percent for men and 6.3 percent for women: Hu and Denier 2023) and New Zealand (6.4 percent of women and 4.6 percent of men between 2013–2014 and 2020–2021: Lilly et al. 2024), it is more prominent in the United States: 6 percent for men and 11 percent for women, with differences driven by young women in particular, at 18 percent versus 9 percent of young men (Mittleman 2023).

Among women, changing to a heterosexual identity is associated with aspirations to marry and become a mother (Campbell 2022), as well as becoming more conservative and religious (Silva 2019). Among men and women, identity change is also associated with entering or exiting a same-sex relationship (Hu and Denier 2023) and changes to attractions (Mittleman 2023; Silva 2019). Sexual identity change is multidirectional and driven by several distinct factors. Individuals may shift from a straight identity to an LGB identity, whereas people with an LGB identity may change between LGB identities (e.g., bisexual to lesbian) or to a straight identity. The commonality of sexual identity change—but also the differing prevalence across countries—points to the importance of longitudinal, representative surveys, as well as measurement of sexual identities in surveys globally.

The Prevalence of LGBQ Identities Worldwide and the Unusually High Prevalence in the United States

How common are LGBQ identities today, and how does the prevalence compare to years past? This question cannot be answered for most countries, given that in most countries, representative data are not available or have been available for only a short time. The United States does have excellent data on this topic: LGBTQ identification has more than doubled, from 3.5 percent in 2012 to 9.3 in 2024 (Jones 2025). A record 23.1 percent of Gen Z individuals identify as LGBTQ, compared to 14.2 percent of Millennials, 5.1 percent of Gen X, 3 percent of Baby Boomers, and 1.8 percent of the Silent Generation (Jones 2025).

While increases in LGBTQ identification are occurring in many countries, the high prevalence of sexual minority identities is specific to the United States. In Canada, 4.4 percent of the population and 10.5 percent of people aged 15 to 24 identified as LGBTQ between 2019 and 2021 (Statistics Canada 2024). In the United Kingdom, 4.5 percent of the population identified as LGB or “other” in 2023; 10.4 percent of youth aged 16 to 24 identified as LGB (ONS 2025).³ Similarly, in Australia, 3.6 percent of the population and 8.7 percent of people aged 16 to 24 identified as LGB or other in 2022 (ABS 2024). While figures for the United Kingdom and Australia do not include transgender or nonbinary identification, in many countries under 1 percent of the population identifies in one of these ways,⁴ and therefore, the estimates would change only slightly if transgender and nonbinary identification were included.⁵

The demography of sexual identity differs between the United States and other countries in another way, too: gender. 10 percent of women identified as LGBTQ, compared to 6 percent of men (Jones 2025). Among Gen Z (aged 18 to 27), the figures are 31 percent and 12 percent—a massive gap primarily due to young women’s much greater likelihood to identify as bisexual (Jones 2025). In contrast, in the United Kingdom, 4.2 percent of women and 5 percent of men identified as LGB or other (ONS 2025). The difference between these two figures is lower than in the United States, and the trend is reversed. Among U.K. youth, specifically, 10.6 percent of women aged 16 to 24 identified as LGB, compared to 7.9 percent of men (ONS 2023).⁶ While the gender gap among U.K. youth is in the same direction as in the United States, it is far smaller. As of 2023 in France, 5.6 percent of women and 5.2 percent of men identified as LGB or pansexual (INSERM 2024). Among youth aged 18 to 29, 15.3 percent of women and 8.6 percent of men identified in one of these ways, with women’s greater likelihood to identify as bisexual or pansexual responsible for the gender difference (INSERM 2024).

In Japan in 2023, 1.5 percent of men and 3.9 percent of women identified as LGB or asexual (Hiramori and Kamano 2025). People aged 20 to 29 had a higher likelihood of identifying in one of these ways, at 6.1 percent (Kamano et al. forthcoming), including 2.6 percent of men and 8.3 percent of women.⁷ In Brazil, 1.9 percent of men and 1.8 percent of women identified as LGB or other in 2019 (Barros 2022). LGB identification was more common among people aged 18 to 29, at 4.8 percent (Barros 2022).⁸ In Brazil and Japan, as in many countries today, women were more likely than men to identify as bisexual.

Although the measures differ between these countries, the story is the same: the prevalence of LGBQ identities is higher in the United States than in other countries, and the gender gap is more prominent as well. This pattern begs the question: why do many countries with higher levels of public acceptance of LGBQ people than the United States (Haerpfer et al. 2022; Poushter and Kent 2020) have lower rates of LGBQ identification? Indeed, even in the largest metropolitan area in one of the most accepting countries in the world, Sweden, a smaller percentage of people identify as LGBQ than in the United States (Zhang et al. 2024).

Why the Unites States is an outlier in this regard may relate to politics. Longitudinal survey research shows that Americans on the political left are more likely to claim an LGB identity than Americans on the political right, indicating that some people shift their identity to align with their political beliefs (Egan 2020). Similarly, LGB identification in the United States is more strongly linked to left-leaning beliefs than gender, race/ethnicity, or education (Schnabel 2018). A total of 21 percent of Americans on the political left identify as LGBTQ, compared to 8 percent of moderates and 3 percent of Americans on the political right (Jones 2025). This trend may help explain youth gender gaps in sexual identification in the United States. The percentage of women aged 18 to 29 on the political left was 32 percent between 2008 and 2016 and 40 percent between 2017 and 2024 (Saad, Jones, and Fioroni 2024). Equivalent figures for men were 27 and 25 percent (Saad, Jones, and Fioroni 2024). There are considerable political divides between young women and men in many countries (Burn-Murdoch 2024), however, and massive gender gaps in sexual identification do not exist in most countries outside of the United States, meaning more factors must be responsible.

The relationship between political ideology and sexual identity may be more tightly connected in the United States than in other countries. In the United States, 16 percent of LGBTQ people are Republican or lean Republican, whereas 80 percent are Democratic or lean Democratic (Pew Research Center 2025). In contrast, LGB voters in Western Europe are only moderately more likely to support left-leaning parties than heterosexuals (Page and Paulin 2022; Turnbull-Dugarte 2023). A uniquely strong link between political ideology and LGBQ identity in the Unites States would help explain both the higher prevalence of LGBQ identification and the larger gender gap. Future research will need to conduct cross-national studies to more conclusively determine why the Unites States is such an outlier with both trends.

Within the Unites States, most of the rise in LGBTQ identification is due to young women increasingly identifying as bisexual. Approximately one in five Gen Z women identify as bisexual, far higher than the 9 percent of millennial women and 2.8 percent of Gen X women (Jones 2024).⁹ How different are Gen Z bisexual women’s partnering patterns from bisexuals in other cohorts? To what extent does bisexual identification mean something qualitatively different to Gen Z women compared to women in other cohorts?

Variation within Identities

Because physical attraction, romantic attraction, sexual behavior, and sexual identity do not always “align” (Priebe and Svedin 2013), scholars have examined variations within sexual identities, particularly heterosexuality. A substantial minority of heterosexuals report same-sex attraction or behavior everywhere the topic has been examined, including the Unites States (Mishel 2019; Silva 2022a), Australia (Richters et al. 2014), Canada (Silva 2024; Silva and Fetner 2022), Britain (Geary et al. 2018), and Japan (Hiramori and Kamano 2025). However, most research about this topic has taken place in the Unites States.

Rather than assuming that all people who engage in same-sex practices must be closeted LGBQ people, researchers have examined two related but separate questions: why do people who report same-sex practices identify as heterosexual, and why do some heterosexuals report same-sex practices? Qualitative research has uncovered a range of answers to the second question. Both women (Walker 2014) and men (Silva 2021) report wanting more sex than they currently have in their different-sex partnerships and feeling like same-sex behavior does not count as cheating (see also Qian and Hu 2025). Indeed, many of the men Silva (2021) interviewed were primarily attracted to women. Gendered reasons exist, too: some men enjoy sex with other men as a way to experience pleasure without having to be in control (Carrillo and Hoffman 2018; Silva 2021).

For many people, sexual behavior is one of only many factors relevant to how they identify themselves. Some women feel that their status as mothers or partners to men makes an LGB identity irrelevant to their lives (Budnick 2016), similar to how some men view marriage to a woman, fatherhood, and normative masculinity as important to their (heterosexual) identity (Silva 2017; 2021). Interestingly, only a minority of Americans who identify as heterosexual and report multiple same-sex partners are overtly homophobic (Silva 2022a). While internalized prejudice is a “push” factor away from LGBQ identities for some people, embeddedness in heteronormative institutions and networks is also a “pull” factor toward heterosexual identification (Silva and Evans 2022).

These themes are specific to the United States, given that the research occurred within it. However, they may also apply to other contexts in which there are relatively high levels of acceptance of LGBQ people. In contrast, in countries in which same-sex behavior is criminalized (ILGA World 2024), no anti-discrimination laws exist, and there are low levels of public support for homosexuality¹⁰ (Haerpfer et al. 2022; Poushter and Kent 2020), structural barriers can more strongly explain why people would identify as heterosexual yet also engage in same-sex behavior. Many people in these contexts foreground other identities, such as their cultural identity and their familial roles, rather than building lives around sexual or gender differences. In these contexts, publicly embracing an LGBTQ identity or being suspected of sexual or gender deviance may be downright dangerous, as evidenced by the many people who claim asylum based on sexual orientation or gender identity.¹¹

Emerging Primary Sexual Identities

Precisely because categorical identities cannot represent the full spectrum of sexual and romantic attraction, newer sexual identities have emerged over the past several decades. “Mostly straight” individuals typically report some same-sex attraction, but less than people who identify as bisexual (Savin-Williams and Vrangalova 2013). Although mostly straight identities are more common among women, they also exist among men. Research among mostly straight women (Campbell, Perales, and Baxter 2021) and men (Savin-Williams 2017) highlights their distinctiveness from people who identify as exclusively heterosexual or bisexual. Similarly, people who identify as queer are distinct from their gay/lesbian and bisexual counterparts on multiple metrics, including attractions and partnering patterns (Goldberg et al. 2020). Another identity claimed by a small proportion of the population, asexual (Greaves et al. 2017; Hiramori and Kamano 2025), is characterized by extensive diversity about desires for sex or romance. Although large-scale surveys that include a question about sexual identity typically only measure heterosexual, bisexual, and gay/lesbian identities, an expanded range of options results in more accurate data (West et al. 2023; see also Holmes and Ghaziani 2025).

Diversity of LGBQ Experiences

Within the LGBQ community there exists a range of experiences based on intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, class, nationality, and spatial context. For instance, scholars have examined the lives of Black lesbians in New York City (Moore 2011), second-generation middle- and working-class Latino and Filipino men in the Los Angeles area (Ocampo 2022), and immigrant Mexican men (Carrillo 2017). Although there are important differences in experience within the larger LGBQ community, most LGBQ people share an experience of reworking norms related to gender, sexuality, and relationships and, in so doing, create communities with their own unique practices. Despite the challenges stemming from discrimination, LGBQ people create and experience considerable joy—a topic that future research should explore more fully, given the analytic emphasis sociologists often place on inequality (shuster and Westbrook 2024).

Most research about LGBQ life takes place in major cities despite the existence of LGBQ people in most places and spatial contexts (Jones 2025; Marino et al. 2024). This skew means that researchers miss out on important variation in LGBQ life (Stone 2018), which has implications for how scholars theoretically understand processes like LGBQ assimilation into mainstream society. For example, what relevance do theories of LGBQ assimilation have for rural areas and small towns, in which LGBQ people may live more similar lives to their non-LGBQ neighbors than to LGBQ people in large cities? Many LGBQ people perceive rural and small-town life as an important part of who they are and often see themselves as distinct from LGBQ urbanites (Annes and Redlin 2012; Conner and Okamura 2022; Kazyak 2012; see also Stackhouse 2024).

Scholars have also studied practices more common among LGBQ people. For example, bisexuals and gay men are far more likely to have open relationships than heterosexuals (or lesbians) (Levine et al. 2018). Additionally, woman–woman and (especially) man–man couples are more likely to have large age gaps than woman–man couples in most places the topic has been examined, including many Latin American countries (Muñoz and Sansone 2024), Germany (Lengerer and Schroedter 2022), the Netherlands (Verbakel and Kalmijn 2014), and the Unites States (Silva and Percheski 2024). This evidence indicates that LGBQ people continue to engage in certain practices more than their heterosexual counterparts (see also Silva and Cassino 2025), even with increased integration into mainstream society due to expanded legal equality and social acceptance.

Most research on LGBQ life takes place in the Unites States and, to a lesser extent, in Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Of course, scholarship has examined LGBQ life in many countries, such as China (Yang, Song, and Xie 2025), India (Lakkimsetti 2020), Turkey (Erol and Ozbay 2018), Israel (Avishai 2023), Nigeria (Balogun and Bissell 2018), and Colombia (Ham, Guarín, and Ruiz 2024). These studies demonstrate how LGBQ life is distinct based on structural and cultural conditions that vary from country to country. Yet research about LGBQ life in most global regions is sparse.

Also sparse is research about sexual identities outside of the Western classification system. For example, two-spirit North American Indigenous identities represent gender and sexual diversity distinct from LGBTQ identities (Robinson 2020), as do hijra identities in South Asia (such as Bangladesh: Hossain 2021), yet the experiences of Indigenous people (across the world) who live culturally specific identities representing sexual and gender diversity are underrepresented in current scholarship.

Secondary Sexual Identities

Identities such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, queer, and heterosexual (in the Western classification system) are “primary” in that they are part of a system of sexual classification adopted by most people in many countries. Secondary sexual identities are part of a system of classification adopted by only a minority of people. Gay men, in particular, have developed niche subcultural identities, including those related to leather (Hennen 2008) and pup play (Wignall and McCormack 2017). Bear identification is the most common subcultural identity among American gay and bisexual men (Silva 2022b); 23.2 percent identify with this term or a related one (e.g., otter). Among lesbian and bisexual women, 8.8 percent identify as butch, and 19 percent as femme (Silva 2022b). Younger cohorts of LGBQ people are equally likely to identify with men’s subcultural identities or women’s gender labels as older cohorts (Silva 2022b), despite increased integration into mainstream society. Butch or “stud” identities among Black lesbians may shape and reflect both gender expression and sexual practices (Wilson 2009). There is much less research about secondary sexual identities among LGBTQ women and nonbinary people than men (Stone and Shapiro 2017 is an exception).

Future research can investigate emerging secondary sexual identities. For example, although older-younger pairings between adult men have long been part of the cultural fabric of gay and bisexual men’s communities, the identity “daddy” appears to have become more common over the past decade or so (Silva 2023). This term typically refers to an older, experienced, and confident man who forms relationships (of varying types) with younger adult men, many of which involve mentorship or nurturance. While not a subcultural identity, since it crosscuts most existing gay subcultures and institutions (including leather, from which the term initially emerged), it is a secondary identity of importance to many gay and bisexual men.

While much work about secondary sexual identities exists about LGBTQ people, some heterosexuals also adopt secondary sexual identities, particularly related to kink and BDSM (bondage, dominance, sadism, and masochism). Some, but not all, heterosexuals experience their BDSM practices through the framework of an identity (Simula 2019). Similarly, some people who practice polyamory—which often involves romantic relationships between more than two people—view it as a relational practice. In contrast, others experience it as both practice and identity (Rubel and Burleigh 2020). Research about secondary sexual identities can help theoretically identify the mechanisms that lead practices to give rise to identities.

Conclusion

Studies about sexual identity over the past several decades have together yielded important information about LGBQ identification. Directions for future research include measuring sexual identification on representative surveys in more countries; asking about identity, behavior, and attraction simultaneously on surveys; examining LGBQ life in more global regions; and examining mechanisms that lead practices to give rise to secondary sexual identities.

One promising avenue for future research is to examine the Unites States as a distinct case study. Why are young American women so much more likely to identify as LGBQ, and especially bisexual, than young women in other countries? As recently as 2012, only 3.5 percent of Americans identified as LGBTQ (Newport 2018). In that year, men and women were about equally likely to identify as LGBTQ, and only 5.8 percent of the youngest cohort (then, Millennials) identified as LGBTQ (Newport 2018). The gender gap in sexual identification, especially among younger cohorts, has exploded since 2012. Future research will need to pinpoint factors (or combinations of factors) specific to the Unites States, or dynamics uniquely strong in the Unites States, to explain this puzzle. To that end, representative cross-national surveys can yield insights about individual nations and pinpoint social factors that explain differences in LGBQ identification across countries.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Tony Silva

Statements and Declarations

Notes

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Sexual Identities: The State of the Field and Future Directions

Abstract

Keywords

Measurement of Sexual Identities

The Prevalence of LGBQ Identities Worldwide and the Unusually High Prevalence in the United States

Variation within Identities

Emerging Primary Sexual Identities

Diversity of LGBQ Experiences

Secondary Sexual Identities

Conclusion

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Statements and Declarations

Notes

References