First LGBT Count Yields New Statistics

That took long enough. Gallup, in cooperation with UCLA, has released statistics from its first-ever state-by-state demographic count of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans—the biggest population survey group to do so. The results? North Dakota has the lowest LGBT population at just 1.7 percent of the state's population, while Washington, D.C., has the highest at 10 percent. On average, the LGBT population hovers around 4 percent. Interestingly, every state that has an LGBT population of 4 percent or higher also has anti-discrimination laws for those groups. The biggest thing researchers learned? Visibility does appear to matter.