Google searches for “am I gay” and similar phrases have surged 1,300 percent since 2004.
A new study by the Cultural Currents Institute, which analyzes public opinion trends, found a staggering 1300 percent increase in “am I gay,” “am I lesbian,” “am I trans,” “how to come out,” and “nonbinary” Google searches since 2004 across the United States. The Cultural Currents Institute notes this “may indicate that a user is questioning their sexual identity.”The data gathered from Google Trends is relative to all Google searches, meaning that the increase in search popularity does not reflect more people using the search engine.
From May 2022 to May 2023, the states which had the highest Google search rate for “am I gay” were Utah, Iowa, Indiana, West Virginia, and New Hampshire. The phrase “am I lesbian” was most popular in Utah, Connecticut, Kentucky, Washington, and Colorado. The phrase “am I trans” was most popular in Utah, Kentucky, Colorado, Michigan, and Washington. “How to come out” was most popular in Oklahoma, West Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Kentucky.
The Cultural Currents Institute noted that the phrase “am I nonbinary” did not have sufficient Google data, but the word “nonbinary” was most searched in Vermont, Oregon, Maine, Montana, and Washington.
The Cultural Currents Institute noted that Utah, a socially conservative state, topped three of the five search categories.
“This might indicate a significant underlying questioning of identity among its internet users, possibly driven by the conflict between personal feelings and societal expectations,” reads the study. “Other socially conservative states also showed evidence of tension between social attitudes and private experience.”
In a separate study, Cultural Currents Institute found that Google search volume for “VPN” surged in Utah after PornHub blocked website access in the state due to strict age-verification laws. A VPN, meaning “virtual private network,” disguises a user’s personal information and would enable access to restricted websites.
Gallup found that self-identified LGBTQ adults in the U.S. doubled in a decade. In 2012, a Gallup poll found that 3.5 percent of U.S. adults said they were LGBTQ, which surged to 7.1 percent in 2021.