Majorities of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ U.S. adults under 50 want to get married someday

Ten years after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, 59% of LGBTQ U.S. adults under 50 who have never married say they want to get married someday. A similar share of non-LGBTQ adults in this age range say the same (63%).

However, LGBTQ adults under 50 who don’t have children are much less likely than their non-LGBTQ peers to say they want children someday (33% vs. 47%).

These findings are based on two Pew Research Center surveys conducted in January and February.

How we did this

As part of our 2025 series on LGBTQ Americans, Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer U.S. adults’ aspirations to get married and have children someday. This series builds on previous research exploring the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary people in the United States. We do not analyze nonbinary respondents in this analysis separately due to small sample size in the survey of non-LGBTQ adults.

For this analysis, we surveyed 3,959 LGBTQ adults from Jan. 8 to 19, 2025. The sample includes respondents from three different sources: Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), SSRS’ Opinion Panel (OP) and Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel (KP). The ATP is a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take surveys regularly.

The survey also included oversamples of transgender adults and gay, lesbian or bisexual adults who are married or living with a partner from Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Like the ATP, the Opinion Panel and KnowledgePanel are probability-based online survey web panels recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses.

This analysis also includes data from 4,716 U.S. adults who are not LGBTQ and were not sampled to participate in the survey of LGBTQ adults. The data was collected as part of a larger survey of U.S. adults conducted from Jan. 27 to Feb. 2, 2025. The respondents are members of the ATP.

For both surveys, interviews were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The first survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. LGBTQ adult population, and the second survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors.

Here are the questions used for this analysis, the toplines, and the methodologies for the survey of LGBTQ adults and the survey of non-LGBTQ adults.

Views on getting married

Among LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ adults who have never been married, there are no notable differences by gender in the shares who want to get married someday.

However, those ages 18 to 29 are more likely than those ages 30 to 49 to say they want to get married someday:

• 67% vs. 48% among LGBTQ adults
• 73% vs. 49% among non-LGBTQ adults

In turn, larger shares of those ages 30 to 49 than those ages 18 to 29 in each group say they don’t want to get married.

Related: The Experiences of LGBTQ Americans Today

What about those who have already been married?

Among adults younger than 50 who are divorced, widowed or separated, LGBTQ adults are more likely than non-LGBTQ adults to say they want to get married again someday (46% vs. 33%).

Similar shares in both groups say they don’t want to get married again. But a larger share of non-LGBTQ than LGBTQ adults say they are not sure (37% vs. 25%).

Views on having children

Among non-LGBTQ adults under 50 who don’t have children, 47% say they want kids someday. A much smaller share of their LGBTQ counterparts (33%) say the same.

In turn, LGBTQ adults are much more likely than non-LGBTQ adults to say they don’t want to have children (39% vs. 23%).

Meanwhile, significant shares of both LGBTQ adults (28%) and non-LGBTQ adults (29%) are not sure if they want children.

Differences by gender

LGBTQ men and women are equally likely to say they want to have children someday (36% and 37%).

But among non-LGBTQ adults, 54% of men say they want to become parents someday, compared with 39% of women.  

This gender difference is largely driven by the preferences of non-LGBTQ Republican men. Most in this group (66%) say they want children someday. Far fewer Republican women (42%), Democratic men (43%) and Democratic women (38%) say the same. (Republicans and Democrats include those who lean toward either party.)

Differences by age

Like marriage, those ages 18 to 29 are more likely than those ages 30 to 49 to say they want to have children someday:

• 59% vs. 34% among non-LGBTQ adults
• 36% vs. 27% among LGBTQ adults

Meanwhile, larger shares of those ages 30 to 49 than those ages 18 to 29 in each group say they don’t want to have kids.

Related: Same-Sex Parents Raising Kids

Note: Here are the questions used for this analysis, the toplines, and the methodologies for the survey of LGBTQ adults and the survey of non-LGBTQ adults.