After decades of steady gains, American support for several major LGBTQ+ issues has softened from its early-2020s high, according to new Gallup polling. The numbers do not show a country that has broadly turned against LGBTQ people. Same-sex marriage still has majority support, and most Americans still view gay and lesbian relationships as morally acceptable. But the direction of the trend matters: on marriage, same-sex relationships, and gender change, support is now lower than it was just a few years ago.

For LGBTQ Americans, the poll lands at a tense moment. More adults identify as LGBTQ+ than at any point since Gallup began measuring it in 2012, yet politics around transgender rights, schools, medical care, sports, and public visibility have become more hostile and more polarized. The result is a strange split-screen reality: more LGBTQ people are out, visible, and counted, while support for some LGBTQ civil rights questions is no longer climbing the way many advocates once assumed it would.

What Happened

Gallup’s latest Values and Beliefs survey, conducted May 1-17, 2026, found that 65% of U.S. adults say same-sex marriages should be legally valid. That remains a clear national majority, but it is down from Gallup’s 71% high in 2022 and 2023.

The decline is similar on another long-running measure: whether Americans consider gay or lesbian relations morally acceptable. Gallup found that 62% now say they are morally acceptable, the lowest level on that question since 2016. In 2022, that number was 71%.

The sharpest divide appears on transgender-related questions. Gallup first asked about the morality of “changing one’s gender” in 2021, when 46% called it morally acceptable and 51% called it morally wrong. In 2026, 38% call it morally acceptable, while 57% call it morally wrong.

Gallup’s bottom line: pro-LGBTQ+ attitudes rose for about two decades, peaked around five years ago, and have since edged downward, mostly because of movement among Republicans.

The poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,001 adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Gallup reports a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

The Big Numbers

  • Same-sex marriage: 65% of Americans support legal recognition, down from 71% in 2022 and 2023.
  • Gay and lesbian relationships: 62% say they are morally acceptable, down from 71% in 2022.
  • Changing one’s gender: 38% say it is morally acceptable, down from 46% in 2021.
  • Republican support for same-sex marriage: 37%, down from 55% in 2021 and 2022.
  • Republican moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relations: 35%, down from 56% in 2022.
  • Republican moral acceptance of changing one’s gender: 5%, down from 22% in 2021.

Why Republicans Are Driving the Decline

Gallup’s party breakdown shows the shift is not evenly distributed across the country. Democratic support for same-sex marriage remains high at 87%, essentially unchanged from 2022. Independent support is 67%, down six points. But Republican support has dropped sharply, from 55% in 2021 and 2022 to 37% today.

The pattern is even clearer when Gallup asks whether gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable. Among Republicans, that number has fallen from 56% in 2022 to 35% in 2026. Among independents, it declined from 72% to 64%. Among Democrats, it has stayed roughly stable and is now 81%.

On the transgender question, the partisan gap is enormous. Gallup found that only 5% of Republicans say changing one’s gender is morally acceptable, compared with 42% of independents and 60% of Democrats.

That does not mean every Republican voter is anti-LGBTQ. It does mean that the GOP electorate has moved backward on questions where it had previously been softening. For LGBTQ people with Republican relatives, neighbors, coworkers, or state lawmakers, the numbers may help explain why the past few years have felt different: the backlash is not only coming from politicians. In some areas, politicians are reflecting and amplifying a real shift among their base.

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Gallup also summarized the findings on its official Instagram account.

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Why It Matters

This poll matters because LGBTQ rights have often been described as a one-way story: visibility rises, public support rises, rights expand, and opposition ages out. Gallup’s data complicates that story.

Marriage equality still looks durable in broad national opinion, but support has slipped enough to show that even settled rights can become politically reactivated. The transgender numbers are more fragile. Many Americans who support same-sex marriage remain uncertain, uncomfortable, or opposed when the conversation shifts to gender identity, medical care, school policy, sports, bathrooms, or legal documents.

That gap is not new, but it has become the center of the modern LGBTQ rights fight. For years, opponents of LGBTQ equality focused heavily on same-sex marriage. After the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision legalized marriage equality nationwide, the political battlefield shifted. Transgender rights, drag, school curriculum, pronouns, sports participation, and gender-affirming care became the new focus of conservative campaigns.

Gallup’s numbers suggest those campaigns have had an effect, especially on Republican voters.

The Other Side of the Story: More Americans Identify as LGBTQ+

The same polling universe tells another important story. In February 2026, Gallup estimated that 9% of U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or something other than heterosexual. That figure is more than double the 3.5% Gallup measured in 2012.

The increase is concentrated among younger adults. Gallup found that 23% of adults under 30 identify as LGBTQ+, compared with 10% of adults ages 30 to 49 and 3% or less among adults 50 and older. Bisexual identity remains the largest share of LGBTQ identification, representing more than half of LGBTQ adults in Gallup’s data.

That creates one of the central tensions of 2026: LGBTQ people are more visible than ever in the data, but visibility alone is not producing a straight upward line in public support. More people know LGBTQ people. More families include LGBTQ people. More workplaces, schools, and cities have LGBTQ residents who are out. Yet polarization can still harden attitudes.

PRRI Shows Strong Support, But With Warning Signs

Gallup is not the only survey showing a more complicated public opinion landscape. PRRI’s 2025 American Values Atlas found that 72% of Americans support nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people. That includes 90% of Democrats, 76% of independents, and 56% of Republicans.

PRRI also found that majorities in nearly every state support same-sex marriage. The only states without majority support in PRRI’s 2025 data were Mississippi at 47% and Arkansas at 50%. At the high end, Massachusetts and Rhode Island were both at 85%, with Vermont at 81%.

But PRRI’s data also shows warning signs. The organization found that young adults ages 18 to 29 have become less supportive of LGBTQ nondiscrimination laws over the past decade, declining from 80% in 2015 to 70% in 2025, a shift PRRI says is largely driven by young Republicans. PRRI also found that a majority of Americans oppose religiously based service refusals against LGBTQ people, but opposition has softened in some groups.

Taken together, Gallup and PRRI point to the same conclusion: LGBTQ rights still have broad support, but the consensus is not as stable or as evenly shared as it looked a few years ago.

Transgender Rights Are the Flashpoint

The national debate over transgender rights is happening in law, politics, medicine, schools, and sports all at once. The ACLU says state legislatures have advanced a record number of bills targeting LGBTQ rights in recent years, especially transgender youth, with proposed measures covering IDs, healthcare, public expression, drag, school curriculum, bathrooms, and sports.

The courts have also shifted. In June 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors in United States v. Skrmetti. KFF noted that the decision left most state bans on youth gender-affirming care in place and preserved a state-by-state patchwork of access.

In June 2026, the Supreme Court also upheld Idaho and West Virginia laws banning transgender girls and women from participating on female school athletic teams, according to the Associated Press. That decision affected a highly charged issue that has become one of the most politically effective arguments used by opponents of transgender inclusion.

Those legal developments do not prove that polls caused policy, or that policy caused polls. But they show that public opinion, political messaging, and court decisions are now feeding into one another. When transgender rights are repeatedly framed as a threat, confusion or discomfort can become opposition. When opposition becomes politically useful, lawmakers produce more bills. When more bills produce more headlines, the public hears about transgender people primarily through conflict.

What the Data Does Not Say

It is important not to overread the Gallup poll. A decline from a peak is not the same as a collapse. A majority of Americans still support same-sex marriage. A majority still say gay and lesbian relationships are morally acceptable. PRRI still finds broad support for nondiscrimination protections. And millions of LGBTQ Americans live in families, workplaces, and communities where acceptance is far stronger than it was a generation ago.

The poll also does not measure every aspect of LGBTQ life. It does not tell us how many Americans support specific nondiscrimination laws, how many know a transgender person personally, how many support equal access to housing or employment, or how people respond when questions are framed around real people rather than abstract moral categories.

Question wording matters. “Changing one’s gender” is not the same as asking whether transgender people deserve equal treatment at work, safety at school, accurate IDs, or access to healthcare. Polls can reveal important trends, but they can also compress complex lives into blunt wording.

Timeline

  • 1996: Gallup finds 27% of Americans support legal same-sex marriage.
  • 2001: Gallup first asks whether gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable; 40% say yes.
  • 2012: Gallup begins measuring LGBTQ+ identification and finds 3.5% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ+.
  • 2015: The Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage nationwide in Obergefell v. Hodges.
  • 2021: Gallup first asks whether changing one’s gender is morally acceptable; 46% say yes.
  • 2022-2023: Gallup records its high point for same-sex marriage support at 71%.
  • 2025: The Supreme Court upholds Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
  • 2026: Gallup finds support for same-sex marriage at 65%, moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relations at 62%, and moral acceptance of changing one’s gender at 38%.

What Happens Next

The next question is whether this is a temporary dip or the beginning of a longer realignment. If conservative messaging around transgender people continues to dominate LGBTQ coverage, support may keep softening among Republican and some independent voters. If LGBTQ advocates, families, doctors, teachers, faith leaders, and local communities can rehumanize the conversation, the numbers may stabilize or recover.

For gay.us readers, the lesson is not panic. It is vigilance. Rights are not protected by demographics alone. They are protected by persuasion, law, culture, organizing, and the everyday work of making sure LGBTQ people are understood as neighbors, family members, coworkers, students, parents, and citizens.

The most sobering part of Gallup’s data is not that support has slipped. It is that many people assumed it could not. The LGBTQ rights movement has won enormous victories, but the public opinion battle is still alive — and transgender Americans are now carrying much of its weight.

Sources / Further Reading