This will happen in the next decade for one unexpected reason – Boomer death.
By Henry Giardina
For LGBTQ+ Americans living through a volatile political timeline, hope for the future often circles around one core question: who could I be if money weren’t an object?
Unfortunately, for most queer people, money is definitely an object. According to an April report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, LGBTQ+ Americans make about 90 cents for every dollar their straight counterparts earn. And that’s without taking any intersectional factors into account, such as race, gender, and disability. With LGBTQ+ workplace protections under attack for trans people and LGBTQ+ federal employees, the picture gets even bleaker. If making money is survival, and being openly queer and trans makes it harder for workers to access job opportunities and workplace protections, the incentive to stay closeted remains directly tied to our livelihood.
But something is coming down the pipeline that could change that, albeit in a sad, morbid way. The Great Wealth Transfer from aging boomers to their Gen X and Millennial offspring will pick up in the coming decades, and with it, we could see changes in what LGBTQ+ adults find possible, according to a recent UBS report.
Baby boomers occupy a unique financial position in American history, and with a net worth of about $124 trillion to pass on to future generations, their legacy continues to be a complex one. While boomers represent a past in which predominantly white men with family connections were able to grow and maintain wealth, that’s going to change as the money crosses over. “Wealth owners will be younger, more female—and more openly queer,” economist Paul Donovan wrote in a recent blog post titled “Wealth goes ‘woke’.”
“The views and values of LGBTQ+ investors will become significantly more important in driving investment strategies and the global cost of capital,” he writes.
According to a recent Gallup poll, LGBTQ+ adults represent over 9% of the American population, nearly double the percentage estimated in 2012. In the coming decades, a higher portion of that population will be armed with the funds to live their lives openly, without worrying about employer discrimination or social backlash.
But does that translate to a changing face of wealth? Not necessarily. As Donovan explains, there are a few caveats here, one of which being the fact that queer people, on average, tend not to live as long as their straight counterparts, for depressing reasons ranging from healthcare access to hate crimes. There’s also the problem of inheritance law. If parents (or state legislature) are homophobic enough, there are always ways to avoid paying out funds to the openly queer members of the family. Spousal inheritance is also a potentially problematic factor in an era when the right to gay marriage is somehow still being attacked on a state-by-state basis.
Even so, the knowledge that this wealth is due to be passed on could create a freer atmosphere in terms of living an openly queer life. We’ve already seen a jump in identification between Millennials and Gen Z. While 5.1% of Gen Xers identified as LGBTQ+, that number more than doubled for Millennials, 14% of whom identify as queer and/or trans. For Gen Z, the number is as high as 23%.
The fact that 86% of LGBTQ+ investors focus on diversity and equity philanthropy is also heartening. Even if the political realty remains stark, queer adults remain focused on spreading their wealth around in the right directions.
Source: https://www.queerty.com/americans-are-going-to-get-a-lot-gayer-in-the-next-decade-for-one-unexpected-reason-20260707/
