Media release

From: Charles Darwin University

A boom in the number of Aussies identifying as lesbian, gay, or bisexual could be indicative of a “sexual revolution” not seen since the 60s and 70s, new research led by Charles Darwin University (CDU) has found.

The study’s lead researchers Fiona Shalley and Adjunct Associate Professor Thomas Wilson, from the CDU Northern Institute’s Demography and Growth Planning team, found the LGB+ population of Australia doubled between 2012 and 2020, increasing from 3.3 per cent of adults over the age of 15 to 5.8 per cent.

The research used responses from participants who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or another sexual identity in the HILDA longitudinal survey of 17,000 Australians to estimate the size and growth of the LGB+ population at three time points – 2012, 2016, 2020.

Ms Shalley said the “burst of acceptance” of the sexual minority population in Australia across this time period – particularly following the same-sex marriage vote in 2017 – could be a mirror to the shift in social attitudes and behaviours about sex that happened 50 years ago.

“Australia’s LGB+ demographic is a relatively hidden population group,” she said.

“We still don’t enough about them to understand how the population will grow in the future – but  we are certainly noticing them now.

“The growing confidence of people identifying as LGB+ is likely influenced by the number of visible positive role models, social media attention, and in our storytelling.

“If you think about the 60s and the 70s and the big revolution of sexual freedom then, maybe it’s happening again.”

But as with any revolution, one of the biggest questions lies in whether it will create lasting and meaningful social change, leaving behind the stigma and discrimination that was attached to minority sexual orientations in the past.

How people choose to describe their sexual identity also changes over time, with new labels becoming much more common – particularly for young people – and this has the potential to shape how Australians define their identities and relationships in the future.

Ms Shalley said it was difficult to project future population trends due to reliance on using historic patterns to inform those predictions, but one group in particular poses a unique challenge.

“This research identified that the biggest driver of the growth in the Australian LGB+ demographic over the eight-year time frame was young women who identified as bisexual,” she said.

“There is lots of evidence that women’s patterns of attraction and behaviour are more likely to change over time than men’s, so we cannot be certain they will continue to choose the same sexual identity in the future, or even remain part of the sexual minority population as it is now described.”

Ms Shalley said if the young adults who participated in the study maintained their sexual minority identities throughout their life, Australia’s LGB+ population could grow by about 3 per cent per year.

“But if the growth trend identified in the data used by this research continues, we could see an adult LGB+ population size of about 1.7 million people once the next data is updated from 2024. That’s an even bigger jump,” she said.

Ms Shalley said the 2026 Australian Census will be the first to measure sexual orientation and will provide a more accurate estimate of the nation’s queer demographic than the smaller population sample analysed in her research.