Date: Sunday, December 21, 2025
We are Amy Lippincott from TCC Group (Co-Chair of the LGTBQ+ Voices in Evaluation TIG) and Veronica S. Smith (she/they) from Data2Insight. We, along with Cody Ingle (he/him) and Carlos Romero (he/him), presented this topic at the 2025 AEA conference.
Since January 2025, there has been the signing of Executive Order #14168, removal of LGBTQ+ information (particularly certain gender identity information) from national datasets, and changes to planned federal data collection, including stopping the expected addition of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) questions to the 2030 census. These changes threaten to exacerbate the marginalization and harm to LGBTQ+ communities across the nation, and make it more important than ever for evaluators to know what information exists for which groups and which locations.
Based on a variety of sources, we know that the LGBTQ+ population is about 7.1% of the US population ages 16+ and at least 4.1% of the population (often much more) in every individual state/territory. However, the proportion of the population identifying as LGBTQ+ varies widely based on age. Just in the three generations from Gen X to Gen Z, the non-heterosexual population has grown from 7% to 28% and the percentage of those identifying as non-cisgender has grown from 0.4% to about 3%.
Although some changes are likely coming to which questions can be asked and who will have access to data, the two national risk behavior surveys (BRFSS and YRBSS) continue, for now, to be the best sources of representative state/territory-wide data across much of the United States. In 2023, 19 states used the optional SOGI module on both surveys, while 22 states and one territory used the SOGI module in one tool (about two-thirds were only used in the adult survey, BRFSS).
States have been and continue to step up to bridge the data gap created by lack of federally-funded SOGI data collection, with 20 states + DC and Puerto Rico having either a SOGI data collection policy, an LGBTQ+ affairs commission, or both. As of November 2025, the 13 states or territories with an LGBTQ+ commission are: Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, DC. While their structure, capacity, and activities vary widely, these commissions often undertake their own data collection efforts as part of their work.
Due to the piecemeal federal approach and inconsistent statewide progress, many community-directed data collection efforts have come about in the last 6 or so years, including 2019’s Mississippi LGBTQ Study, the current Pride in Numbers project (Oregon), and some of the projects funded by the Campaign for Southern Equality’s Southern Equality Research & Policy Center and Funders for LGBTQ Issues’ Out in the South Initiative.
The American Evaluation Association is hosting LGBTQ+ Voices in Evaluation TIG Week with our colleagues in the LGBTQ+ Voices in Evaluation Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to AEA365 come from our LGBTQ+ Voices in Evaluation TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this AEA365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the AEA365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an AEA365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to AEA365@eval.org. AEA365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.