Even after a group of LGBT activists from GetEQUAL, a group affiliated with those behind the heckling of the First Lady last week, were arrested outside of House Speaker Boehner's office on Thursday, according to CNN, new research reveals that most LGBT Americans are feeling more accepted, but are still facing significant discrimination.
In Pew Research's first-ever measure of data based on Americans who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) the survey found that the American LGBT community feels that, as a whole, people are more accepting than they were a decade ago, but more progress still needs to be made, according to TIME.
The report was released on Thursday and indicates favorable measures in terms of how the LGBT participants feel about their inclusion in society over the years.
"[Nine] in 10 LGBT surveyed feel they have become more accepted in the past decade and just as many say they expect the acceptance to increased in the coming decade," said Paul Taylor, executive vice president of Pew Research, to TIME. "In our business when you see those numbers, that's pretty dramatic. But that needs to be kept in perspective, because while these are the best of times, that doesn't mean it's the easiest of times.
"Even in a time of feeling more socially accepted, fewer than [six] in 10 have told their mothers about their sexual orientation or gender identity and fewer than [four] in 10 have told their fathers - that suggests the complicated realms of their lives," he said
The research also showed that transgender individuals are least accepted and bisexual woman are most accepted. Only about 3 percent of those who participated agreed that there is a significant amount of acceptance of transgender individuals. Concurrently, lesbians were more accepted than gay men, as reflected in the survey data.
Watch a behind the scenes video of a TIME cover shoot: Gay Marriage
