However, for other age groups it is more common to identify as lesbian or gay than bisexual.
The proportion of the UK population identifying as LGB in 2019 decreased with each consecutive age group. A greater proportion of the LGB population are aged 16 to 24 years compared with the population as a whole, with almost one-third of people identifying as LGB falling into this age group (Figure 3). Possible reasons for this pattern are that younger people could be more likely to explore their sexuality, combined with more social acceptability of different sexual identities and the expression of these today. However, for the first time, older people (aged 65 years and over) also showed an increase in those identifying as LGB.
Figure 3: Younger people are more likely to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) than older age groups This rose from 0.7% in 2018 to 1.0% in 2019 of this age category (120,000, from a population of 12.0 million).
