In The UK More People Than Ever Before Are Admitting They are Gay

The Office for National Statistics has revealed that a record number of people in the UK are identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

For the first time on record, ONS have found over a million UK citizens self-identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB). That’s above 2% of the UK’s entire population.

The statistics show an increase of 1.7% compared to the number of LGB identifying Brits in 2015. ONS’s Emily Knipe described this as a “statistically significant” increase.

The biggest increase was in the number of Brits identifying as bisexual, rising from 0.6% to 0.8% of the UK’s population.

The number of Brits identifying as gay and lesbian also increased, from 1.1% to 1.2% of the population.

Statistics show that young people in the 16-24 age bracket have the largest LGB demographic, with 4% of them identifying as LGB. This is in comparison to 2.9% of the 25-34 demographic, and only 0.7% of over 65s.

This is likely a result of generational differences, with young people being more accepting and more open to exploring their sexuality.

Men are also more than twice as likely to identify as gay than women, with 1.7% of men identifying as gay, compared to 0.7% of women.

In contrast, women are more likely to identify as bisexual, with approximately 0.9% of women identifying as bisexual, and 0.6% of men.

There are also regional differences in LGB population, the largest being in London, accounting for 2.7% of people.

The region with the least LGB people is the East, with just 1.2% of people identifying as LGB.

This increase is great news as it shows visibility of LGB people in Britain is on the rise, and also signals that the UK is increasingly becoming a place where people can live openly and freely in the way they were supposed to.

 Gay Times

Young people coming out

More young people across Britain identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) in 2016, in a slight increase from the year before, according to official data.

About four per cent of those aged between 16 and 24 identified as LGB, a rise from about three per cent in 2015.

This age group had the highest proportion of LGB people in Britain, followed by 25 to 34 year olds.

"One reason for this pattern may be that younger people could be more likely to explore their sexuality, combined with more social acceptability of sexual identities today and the ability to express these," the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in its report on Wednesday.

More than 1 million people, or two per cent of the British population, identified as LGB in 2016, a statistically significant increase from 1.7 per cent in 2015, the ONS said.

Males and people living in London were also most likely to identify as LGB last year, ONS said.

The figures did not include transgender people.

Although Britain is one of a handful of countries where LGBT people have equal constitutional rights, activists say abuse and discrimination remain rife.

A recent YouGov survey said that hate crimes against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Britain almost doubled in the past four years, with one in five people targeted in the past 12 months.