
The share of Americans who identify as bisexual has tripled in the past decade – and women are behind the increase, according to new data from the General Social Survey.

Some 3.3 percent of Americans identified as bisexual in 2018 – up from 1.1 percent in 2008, according to the GSS, a comprehensive poll that has tracked American attitudes and beliefs since 1972.

While the share of Americans identifying as gay has seen some variation over the past decade, cumulatively the change was minimal: 1.7 percent in 2018 compared to 1.6 percent in 2008.

Notably, 5.6 percent of U.S. women consider themselves bisexual, compared to just 0.6 percent of men.

The share of Americans who identify as bisexual has tripled in the past decade, while the share of Americans identifying as gay has seen some variation over the past decade, cumulatively the change was minimal: 1.7 percent in 2018 compared to 1.6 percent in 2008. Source: General Social Survey

Some 5.6 percent of U.S. women self identified as bisexual in 2018, compared to just 0.6 percent of men. Source: General Social Survey

The share of women has risen 273 percent since 2008, when just 1.5 percent self-identified as bisexual.

'Some people have said that this means new people are identifying this way, but I think actually this is an illustration of what happens as sexual tolerance becomes more mainstream,' sociologist Tristan Bridges told DailyMail.com. 'It becomes less scary to sort of publicly identify yourself (as LGBTQ) even in an anonymous survey.'

Men on the other hand have consistently been less likely than women to describe themselves as bisexual, with numbers hovering between 0.5-1.9 percent over the past decade.

'I think that women have always been more likely to identify as bisexual than men and I think one of the reasons that is, is there's a large body of research that connects masculinity and homophobia and I think it's more socially costly for men to be perceived as bisexual or gay,' Bridges said.

African Americans were also significantly more likely to identify as bisexual in 2018 - 6.5 percent, compared to 2.5 percent of white Americans.

Among black people, that number has nearly doubled since 2016, when just 3.3 percent of African Americans identified as bisexual.

In addition, Democrats were significantly more likely than Republicans to identify as bisexual (4.5 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively). Some 3.3 percent of independents said they were bisexual in 2018.

The findings were first discovered by Bridges and his fellow sociologist D'Lane Compton, and reported by Quartz.

'The trends in sexual identification appear to be on trajectories and reasonable if we consider increases in social tolerance rates and queer visibility in mainstream media,' they wrote.

'They are not extreme and lie within smaller or similar ranges of measures from prior 'national surveys' of sexual behavior,' they added.

Overall, 6.5 percent of African Americans identified as bisexual in 2018, compared to 2.5 percent of white Americans. That number has nearly doubled since 2016, when 3.3 percent of African Americans identified as bisexual. Source: General Social Survey

Acceptance of LGBTQ people has grown significantly in recent decades: just 31 percent of Americans said it was wrong for LGBTQ people to engage in sexual relations in 2018, compared to 70 percent in 1973, the first year the GSS asked the question. It represents a 55 percent decrease over more than four decades. Source: General Social Survey

The researchers also found that the rise in female bisexuality has been more predominate among young African American women.

The findings echo data from a recent Gallup survey that reported 'women, college-educated people, people of color and those who are not religious,' were behind the most significant rise in lesbian, gay and bisexual orientation from 2012-2016.

At the same time, acceptance of LGBTQ people has grown significantly in recent decades, according to GSS data.

Just 31 percent of Americans said it was wrong for LGBTQ people to engage in sexual relations in 2018, compared to 70 percent in 1973, the first year the GSS asked the question. It represents a 55 percent decrease over more than four decades.

There has been a notable increase in the representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people on TV and in movies in the past decade, with 75 (or 8.8 percent) out of 857 series regulars on television openly identified as gay, transgender or queer, according to GLAAD's annual TV diversity report.

In addition, bisexual characters accounted for 27 percent of LGBTQ characters on all platforms in 2018, including cable TV and streaming shows.

'We have long-known that bisexual people make up as many as half of the LGBTQ population,' said Elliott Kozuch, deputy press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.

'In recent years, progress on achieving LGBTQ equality, coupled with representation through celebrity coming out stories and positive bi characters in TV and film are giving people more comfort and safety in coming out as bisexual,' they told DailyMail.com.