The Gayest State In The U.S.A. Is…
December 10, 2023According to a new study from UCLA, Kentucky is officially the U.S.A.’s gayest state in terms of LGBTQ+ population.
That doesn’t mean Kentucky literally has the most gay people — the state isn’t that big to begin with. Rather, Kentucky has the highest proportion of LGBTQ+ people in its population, with a whopping 10.5% of adults in Kentucky self-identifying as LGBTQ+. That means every 1 in 10 people walking down the streets of Louisville and Lexington is queer, a fact you’d never guess from the state’s reputation or its conservative voting habits.
Landlocked, southern Kentucky having such a disproportionately queer population likely comes as a shock. The U.S.A.’s gay meccas have always been on the coasts: New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, to name a few. But the results don’t lie — there must be something in the Kentucky water that the coastal elite haven’t caught onto.
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Technically, according to ‘Into More’, the highest proportion of LGBTQ+ adults goes not to Kentucky, but to the District of Columbia, with 14.3%. In terms of states, though, Kentucky reigns supreme, followed by Oregon and Delaware with 7.8% and 7.5% respectively.
Rounding out the rest of the top gayest states are Vermont (7.4%), New Hampshire (7.2%), Washington (6.9%), Colorado (6.8%), Nevada (6.6%), and Masschussetts, Maine, and Rhode Island, all tied with 6.5%.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the states with the lowest percentage of LGBTQ+ people are West Virginia and Mississippi, which both have a measly 4.1%. Other painfully straight states include North Carolina (4.4%), Illinois (4.5%), Alabama (4.6%), Iowa (4.7%), North Dakota (4.9%), and South Carolina (4.9%).
The study also analysed its results by region, showing that the highest percentage of the U.S.A.’s queer population is in the South, with 36.9% of all LGBTQ+ adults living in southern states. Meanwhile, 24.2% live in the West, 20.6% live in the Midwest, and just 18.3% live in the Northeast.
Overall, the study found that 5.6% of North American adults identify as LGBTQ+. That’s 14.1 million people across the U.S.A.
That proportion gets higher the younger the adult: between the ages of 18 and 24, 15.4% of North Americans identify as LGBTQ+, with that percentage trending downward with older populations.
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