As many as 9.5 million adults in the United States identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and the nation is home to roughly 124,000 married same-sex couples, according to studies released Monday by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
Based on a review of four recent national population-based surveys, the studies found that between 5.2 million and 9.5 million people aged 18 and older identified as LGBT, or between 2.2 and 4 percent of the adult population, according to the institute.
The surveys found the lesbian and gay population generally appeared to represent 1.4 to 1.6 percent of the adult population, but the estimates of the bisexual population varied from 0.6 percent to 1.6 percent.
According to the Williams Institute study, LGBT identity was more common among younger people. Adults were more likely to identify as LGBT in the Northeast and West than in the South and Midwest, the study found.
A separate Williams study found that in 2013, there were roughly 690,000 same-sex couples in the United States, and about 124,000 of them were married. Same-sex couples are raising about 200,000 children, with about 30,000 of them being raised by married same-sex couples, according to the study.
About 12 percent of the married same-sex couples live in the South, while 39 percent live in the Northeast, the study found.
