Age at which Europeans realized they're homosexual

Age at which gay, lesbian, and bisexual people indicate that they realized they were homosexual in Europe in 2019, by country

Characteristic	5 years old or less	6 to 9 years old	10 to 14 years old	15 to 17 years old	18 to 24 years old	25 to 34 years old	35 to 54 years old	55 years old or older	Don't know
Lithuania	2%	6%	51%	26%	12%	1%	1%	0%	1%
Estonia	1%	6%	49%	26%	14%	3%	0%	0%	0%
Slovakia	1%	5%	48%	28%	12%	4%	1%	0%	1%
Bulgaria	2%	5%	44%	30%	14%	4%	0%	0%	0%
Latvia	2%	5%	48%	26%	15%	4%	1%	0%	0%
Slovenia	2%	5%	48%	25%	15%	3%	0%	0%	1%
Croatia	4%	8%	41%	27%	15%	3%	1%	0%	0%
Malta	2%	6%	47%	24%	13%	6%	2%	0%	0%
Romania	3%	6%	43%	26%	14%	6%	2%	0%	0%
Ireland	2%	7%	46%	23%	14%	6%	2%	0%	0%
United Kingdom	2%	8%	49%	19%	13%	5%	3%	0%	0%
Poland	1%	5%	41%	31%	15%	6%	1%	0%	0%
Serbia	3%	8%	41%	25%	18%	3%	1%	-	0%
Austria	2%	7%	40%	27%	15%	5%	3%	0%	0%
Finland	3%	7%	43%	23%	15%	6%	3%	0%	1%
Greece	4%	9%	39%	23%	16%	8%	1%	0%	0%
Czechia	1%	4%	43%	27%	15%	7%	2%	0%	1%
Cyprus	3%	10%	37%	25%	19%	4%	1%	0%	1%
Spain	3%	8%	37%	26%	17%	6%	2%	0%	1%
North Macedonia	2%	6%	36%	30%	20%	4%	0%	-	1%
Germany	2%	5%	42%	24%	17%	6%	3%	0%	1%
Italy	3%	9%	38%	23%	16%	9%	2%	0%	1%
Portugal	3%	9%	35%	24%	18%	8%	2%	0%	1%
Netherlands	1%	5%	40%	25%	18%	6%	3%	0%	0%
France	2%	6%	36%	27%	18%	6%	4%	0%	1%
Sweden	3%	7%	40%	21%	19%	7%	3%	0%	1%
Luxembourg	2%	5%	41%	23%	15%	11%	3%	0%	1%
Hungary	1%	4%	37%	27%	19%	8%	4%	0%	0%
Denmark	2%	4%	37%	26%	20%	8%	3%	0%	1%
Belgium	2%	5%	37%	25%	20%	6%	4%	0%	0%

Download

Source

Show detailed source information?

Already a member?

Source

Release date

May 2023

More information

Region

Europe, EU

Survey time period

May 27 to July 22, 2019

Number of respondents

139,799 respondents

Method of interview

Online survey

Supplementary notes

Date of release refers to most recent date of access.

Citation formats

A majority of gay, lesbian, and bisexual respondents in all European countries indicated in 2019 that they realized they were homosexual before they reached adulthood. Interestingly, this is more the case for countries, such as Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia which perform poorly on metrics of LGBTQ-friendliness and less so for countries which perform well, such as Denmark, Belgium, and Luxembourg.