1 in 5 LGBTQ youth identify as other than gay, lesbian or bisexual

ABOVE: Youth Pride Day (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

More than 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth in the United States identify as a sexual orientation other than gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to a survey unveiled by The Trevor Project Oct. 1.

The survey, which was conducted last year, reveals a large minority of LGBTQ youth identify use terms like “queer, trisexual, omnisexual or pansexual” to describe their sexual orientation.

In comparison the 21 percent of LGBTQ youth who use those less commonly known terms, 45 percent of identify as gay or lesbian and 33 percent as bisexual.

Dr. Amy Green, director of Research for The Trevor Project, said in a statement the survey results are consistent with terms used by LGBTQ youth in speaking with the organization.

“The Trevor Project often hears from young people who identify outside of the sexual orientation labels of gay, lesbian or bisexual, and many times they are able to articulate the difference between their emotional, romantic and sexual attractions to others,” Green said. “LGBTQ young people understand the complexities of their sexual orientation, so we hope to see the research, education and clinical fields expand their sexual orientation measures beyond lesbian, gay and bisexual labels in an effort to better serve LGBTQ youth.”

The vast majority of LGBTQ youth who wrote in a sexual orientation in the survey provided one sexual orientation, according The Trevor Project. Among the terms are asexual, polysexual, abrosexual, graysexual, androsexual, bicurious, homoflexible, masexual, omnisexual, sapiosexual and two spirit.

A substantial portion of responders used terms to denote distinctions between their sexual and romantic attraction, especially those who identified as asexual, according to the Trevor Project.

For those individuals, the youths chose another term to recognize their romantic attractions, such as asexual aromantic, asexual panromanic or asexual homoromantic.

The survey was conducted The Trevor Project, an LGBTQ youth organization that focuses on suicide prevention, LGBTQ people aged 13-24 among a sample of 24,836 youths who were recruited via social media to participate.

Read more at TheTrevorProject.org.