Jess Stearn, the author of The Sixth Man: A Startling Investigation of the Spread of Homosexuality in America, seems to have been prescient. proclaiming in 1961 that "one out of every six men in America is a homosexual." I remember this book well, since a professor in one of the sociology courses I took in college assigned it as required reading at just the moment when I was beginning to ponder my own sexuality. Although I questioned his estimate at the time, what I took away from the book was that I was far from being alone in my attraction to men and that my professor wanted people like me to know this.
I suspect that the increase in those who identify themselves as LGBT from 2012 to 2020, as Gallup reports, does not document some seismic shift, but simply reflects the number of people who are now willing to to reveal their orientation openly .