Americans coming out as gay on Facebook in record numbers

The number of users in the USA coming out is also still on the climb, and if the trend holds, next year will set a new milestone. Like the number of Americans coming out, the support for LGBT pages is similarly increasing at a rapid pace and enjoyed a spike immediately after June’s Supreme Court decision. In fact, over the past 12 months, a number of over 800,000 Americans came out on Facebook.

The number of people who are coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) on Facebook has increased threefold over the past year, according to a new study conducted by the social network.

The social media behemoth says more and more Americans are using the site to come out. The total number of fans for the top 300 LGBT pages rose by around 25 percent in the past year, also spiking around the Supreme Court decision. One such way is this: a “normal” day sees one out of every 10 US users changing their profile in such a way that qualifies as “coming out”.

‘The sheer magnitude of this increase suggests that the LGBT movement has made significant strides in recent years, ‘ the study said. The Facebook research team put together the figures by compiling the number of people each day who either updated their profile to show a same-gender attraction (which appears to include bisexuality); changed their relationship status to show a same-gender partner; or changed their listed gender to one of the 56 options (other than male or female) added a year ago. Additionally, coming out moments have peaked at major moments for the LGBT community, including the Supreme Court ‘s historic decision in support of marriage equality in June, World AIDS Day and Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out interview. This represented an important change in how the website supported the LGBT groups. That makes today’s announcement one of the most personal insights into Facebook’s almost 1.5 billion-person user base ever revealed.

Research from Facebook shows that more and more people on the platform are opening up about the gender and sexuality. And clearly social media is an incredible tool in making that possible.