Gallup found that 15.9% of Generation Z "identify as" LGBT, a significantly higher rate than find amongst Millennials and other earlier-born generations.

But since Gallup defines Gen Z as people born 1997-2002, I'm not sure how reflective of enduring reality and meaningful this finding really is. The recent poll was conducted in 2020, so the people polled in the Gen Z group would have ranged from age 18 to 23 at the oldest.

At 23, the human brain still isn't fully developed yet. Lots of people are still figuring out and coming to terms with their sexuality in their 20s. This has always been true - especially for those who are lesbians, gay and bi, who have to deal with the homophobia of others and the homophobia they've internalized. But it's especially true for those who have come of age since dawn of Facebook, YouTube other social media and smart phones whose social lives since puberty have been spent largely online - and who have spent the bulk of the past year under COVID-19 restrictions that have further limited the chance for RL social interactions and sexual exploration.

I actually think it's sort of irresponsible for Gallup to be asking young people still in their formative years to tell presumably older adult strangers who work as Gallup pollsters what their sexual orientation is. Young people are already so caught up in pigeonholing themselves and others with labels related to sex and sexuality that put everyone into constricting boxes as it is - why encourage them to do more?

By saying that, I don't mean to suggest that young people shouldn't be trying to figure out their own sexual orientation and looking to find their own tribes based on things they have in common, including sexual orientation. Self-exploration and self-definition I'm all for. I just think there's a big difference between finding and knowing yourself and labelling yourself in the eyes of others. In fact, I think that the new habit of wearing identity badges and announcing your own "gender identity" and sexual orientation to the whole world actually gets in the way of self-discovery and self-acceptance.

I think it's irresponsible for Gallup to take the responses of these young people from Gen Z at face value too.

As the last couple of US election cycles show, people tend to give pollsters the answers they think are the "correct" ones that they believe pollsters and polling orgs will approve of. Young people age 23 and under tend to be hyper-aware of what other people think of them and highly desirous of fitting in and not causing offense - much more so than older adults. Therefore I'd imagine the Gen Z respondents would be extremely likely to have given Gallup the answers seen as most fashionable, with it, "inclusive" and edgy.

Also, from everything I've read and the young people I know, youngsters in Gen Z are much less likely to have had any or much in the way of IRL sexual relationships at this point in their lives than members of previous generations did. As a result, I think they are probably less likely to know themselves and their sexuality than people of earlier generations did at the same age. That's not a criticism of young people today - it's simply a reason why adult polling orgs should take what young people under age 23 say about their sexuality with a grain of salt, or lay off them altogether.

Since being part of "LGBT" is such a fad amongst young people in the US today, I'm actually surprised that only 15.9% of the youth age 18-23 in the poll "identified" as "LGBT." I would have guessed the % would be higher.