Sexual Fluidity: Implications for Population Research

For the first time ever, national censuses have begun asking adults to report their sexual orientations. However, because such surveys provide only cross-sectional snapshots of populations, these data obscure one key complexity: that sexuality can be fluid, with sexual self-identification evolving over time. Drawing on unique, restricted-use data from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health, the current study documents the prevalence, correlates, and empirical consequences of sexual fluidity in the contemporary United States. Overall, about 1 in 11 American adults changed sexual identities over five annual surveys, including 6% of cisgender men, 11% of cisgender women, and 35% of gender minorities. Fluidity was particularly pronounced among young adults and among those who had ever identified as bisexual or "something else." Despite the frequency and patterning of sexual fluidity, accounting for fluidity did little to change observed patterns of disadvantage on three measures of sexual minority well-being: mental health, financial insecurity, and substance use. Given these facts, I argue that demographic research should foreground the complexities inherent in quantifying sexuality, focusing less on how many people "are" a given sexual orientation and more on the social dynamics that continue to produce sexual minority disadvantage.