Only 0.1 percent of elected officials are LGBTQ, new report finds
Even a decade ago, being an openly LGBTQ candidate was typically a “deal breaker,” according to Brian Harrison, a political scientist at Northwestern University. “That’s changing,” he said, noting “being LGBTQ isn’t nearly the liability that it used to be.”
Still, there are only 559 known openly LGBTQ elected officials in the U.S., just 0.1 percent of elected officials nationwide, according to a new Victory Institute report. To achieve proportionate representation, America’s estimated 11 million LGBTQ adults (roughly 4.5 percent of the adult population), would need to hold nearly 23,000 more public offices, a 4,000 percent increase, according to the report.
