According to a new poll, the majority LGBT community feel the need to lie about their gender or sexual identity.

The poll – commissioned by Pride in London – asked more than 1,000 members of the LGBT community how they felt about discussing their private lives in public.

A massive 74% said they still felt the need to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity.

A further 59% of respondents said they felt threatened by other people’s attitudes and behaviours towards them.

Other findings showed that 41% of gay men also said they would think twice about holding a partner’s hand in public.

The charity – which organises London’s annual gay pride event – commissioned a second survey among the general population, which showed a “huge difference” compared with LGBT+ people.

In particular, a larger proportion of the LGBT+ community had “felt threatened by other people’s attitudes and behaviours towards them”, and were more likely to experience workplace bullying as a result of their gender.

It found 77% of LGBT+ respondents had revealed their sexuality to friends, while 50% had come out to all their colleagues.
Chair of Pride in London, Michael Salter-Church, said:

Great progress has been made in the name of LGBT+ equality in recent years, but these figures show the striking reason why Pride is still as important as ever”.

The latest figures show that homophobic attacks all also saw a rise between 2014 and 2015.

The results also showed that the number of homophobic incidents recorded was nearly double those of Islamophobic crimes, and three times the number of anti-Semitic crimes.

The Met data showed that 1,667 homophobic offences took place in the 12 months to July 2015 – up from 1,289 in the 12 months to July 2014.

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