Nearly three-quarters of a million adults in Britain say they are gay or bisexual, according to figures published for the first time today by the Office of National Statistics.
The findings, based on interviews with more than 450,000 people – the biggest pool of social data after the census – show that an estimated 481,000 people regard themselves as gay and a further 245,000 – mainly women – say they are bisexual.
The estimate puts Britain’s gay community at 1.5% of the total population – much lower than the most commonly used estimate of 5% to 7%, which was cited by ministers introducing civil partnership legislation and implied a non-heterosexual population of 3.5 million.
Full Story: 1.5% of Britons say they are gay or bisexual, ONS survey finds