At a Glance
Last checked: October 2026. Searched again for newer metro data October 18
How we checked: The Williams Institute’s metro rankings (March 2021, from Gallup surveys) and Gallup’s February 2026 national report
Covers: The top 10 metros by share and by head count, Texas’s four biggest metros, and how the numbers were counted
How we check every guide, and what we won’t list: How We Choose
About 90,000 LGBT adults live in the Austin metro, 5.9% of its adult population. That’s the third-highest share of any large US metro area, behind the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, Oregon.
Those numbers come from the Williams Institute at UCLA, which published metro estimates in March 2021 using Gallup surveys taken from 2012 through 2017. It’s the most recent metro-by-metro ranking we could find. Both of its rankings are below, by share of adults and by head count, because they answer different questions.
Metros With the Highest LGBT Share
| Metro area | Share | LGBT adults |
|---|---|---|
| 1. San Francisco Bay Area | 6.7% | 247,000 |
| 2. Portland, Oregon | 6.0% | 112,000 |
| 3. Austin | 5.9% | 90,000 |
| 4. Seattle | 5.2% | 152,000 |
| 5. Los Angeles | 5.1% | 523,000 |
| 6. Las Vegas | 5.1% | 82,000 |
| 7. Orlando | 5.0% | 93,000 |
| 8. Boston | 4.9% | 186,000 |
| 9. Denver | 4.8% | 103,000 |
| 10. Tampa-St. Petersburg | 4.8% | 113,000 |
Share tells you how big a part of the local population is LGBT, whatever the size of the metro.
Metros With the Most LGBT Adults
| Metro area | LGBT adults | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1. New York | 706,000 | 4.5% |
| 2. Los Angeles | 523,000 | 5.1% |
| 3. Chicago | 298,000 | 4.1% |
| 4. San Francisco Bay Area | 247,000 | 6.7% |
| 5. Miami | 214,000 | 4.5% |
| 6. Dallas-Fort Worth | 211,000 | 4.0% |
| 7. Washington, DC | 209,000 | 4.5% |
| 8. Philadelphia | 198,000 | 4.2% |
| 9. Atlanta | 194,000 | 4.6% |
| 10. Boston | 186,000 | 4.9% |
New York has the most LGBT adults because it has the most adults. Big metros lead this list.
The Gayest City in Texas, by the Numbers
| Metro area | Share | LGBT adults |
|---|---|---|
| Austin | 5.9% | 90,000 |
| San Antonio | 4.4% | 78,000 |
| Dallas-Fort Worth | 4.0% | 211,000 |
| Houston | 3.5% | 169,000 |
Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston have more LGBT adults than Austin. Austin has the highest share of the four. The City of Austin uses the same 90,000 figure in its own November 2025 release.
What that share looks like in practice is in our guide to whether Austin is gay friendly, and our guide to queer-friendly neighborhoods covers where people live.
How the Numbers Were Counted
Gallup asked adults, “Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?” The Williams Institute pooled the answers from June 2012 through December 2017. It applied each metro’s share to its 2017 Census adult population and rounded to the nearest 1,000. Each count has a range: Austin’s is 82,000 to 99,000.
These estimates are older than they look. Gallup’s national figure has more than doubled since it started asking. In February 2026, Gallup reported that 9% of US adults identified as LGBTQ+ in its 2025 interviews, up from 3.5% in 2012, and 23% of adults under 30. Metro shares today are probably higher than the table shows, but no one has published a newer metro ranking that we could find.
What We Couldn’t Check
We couldn’t find metro numbers newer than the 2021 brief, or any city-limits figure for Austin itself. The old version of this page had profiles of other cities, a racial breakdown, and migration figures with no sources. We cut them.
Last checked: October 2026. Rankings from the Williams Institute brief “LGBT Adults in Large US Metropolitan Areas” (March 2021), national figures from Gallup’s February 2026 report, both read October 13, 2026. On October 18, 2026, we searched again and found no newer metro ranking. See a mistake? Use our contact page.
How We Check
We check every business and group we name against what it publishes about itself: its own site, its booking page, or its state license. No business pays to be in a guide, and we don’t earn a commission when you book.
The full method is on How We Choose. If something here is wrong or out of date, send a correction.