My teacher told me that 1 out of 4 people are gay. And stated it was a fact. But I can't find anything accurate on the internet they all say different things. Im in the UK by the way.
given the stigma of society it's impossible to put a figure on...
somewhere between 6-11% of men are thought to be gay but around 30% will have some form of same-sex experience in their life
women it's around 4-7% but as with all these figures, it's very much an approximation and probably on the low side (many more exist than will come out)
very few people are in reality exclusively homosexual or heterosexual and most fit somewhere on the spectrum of bisexuality... this IS impossible to put a figure on as so many people identify publicly as straight yet in reality have some degree of same-sex attraction
this is based on how people identify (Kinsey found that in reality 28% of women had had some form of sexual experience with another woman
The ratios are always skewed due to
A) Social Desirability Bias (closeted people won't say they're gay due to social stigma)
B) Confusion on their sexual orientation
C) Federal Laws (I think 8 countries still have the death penalty for homosexuality, so obviously not many are going to say, "Oh, hey, I'm gay!")
So really I don't think we'll ever know the "true percentage."