More than one in 10 young women in the UK identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or otherwise, according to official figures suggesting that more than 2 million people define themselves as such.
Of the women between the ages of 16 and 24, 11.4% said they were lesbian, gay, bisexual or otherwise according to an annual population survey by the National Statistics Office for 2020. It is the first time since the research began in 2014 that the percentage has exceeded the 10% mark.
In 2014, only 3.1% of young women identified in this way, less than young men, but now far outnumber them, with the largest group of those not identified as heterosexuals, 7.6%, say they are bisexual.
ONS data on sexual identity
But this figure decreases considerably after the age of 24, when it drops to 2% between the ages of 25 and 34 and even more so to less than 1% at older ages.
The figures clearly show an accelerated openness among people over the age of 16 over their sexual orientation and come after Jake Daniels became the first male professional footballer in the UK to publicly declare himself a gay man since 1990. .
Figures show that the proportion of people of all genders in the UK who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual has almost doubled in six years, with the last jump from 2.7% in 2019 at 3.1% by 2020.
ONS data on sexual identity
The survey suggests that 1.65 million people identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual, and 350,000 more say “others.” This equates to more than 800,000 additional 16-year-olds who have been identified in this way since 2014.
The areas of the UK where people were most likely to say they were heterosexual were Northern Ireland, followed by the East of England. The regions with the highest number of people not identifying as heterosexual, including refusal to disclose their sexual orientation, were London, Yorkshire and the North West.
There were also ethnic-based differences, with mixed-race people over the age of 16 less likely to identify as heterosexual or heterosexual. Asian and British people are more likely to say no when asked.