February 24, 2021

"Gallup's latest update on lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender identification finds 5.6% of U.S. adults identifying as LGBT."

"The current estimate is up from 4.5% in Gallup's previous update based on 2017 data." 

When I was in college, 50 years ago, the student group devoted to gay rights was called "The 10 Percent Society." The name was based on the broadly held belief that 10% of the population is gay. That wasn't even counting bisexual or transgender. Just gay and lesbian. Not too many people were open about it back then, but we were told to think that gay people were all around — 1 in 10 people. 

So I think 5.6% is a surprisingly low number. And most of it — 3.1% — are identifying as bisexual. Only 1.4% are gay men, and only 0.7% are lesbian. 

The LGBT percentage goes up within each generation. Baby Boomers are 2.0% LGBT and Gen Z is 15.9%. But, again, that includes people who are saying they identify as bisexual. 72% of those LGBT-identifying Gen Zers say bisexual. And women are far more likely than men to identify as bisexual.

128 comments:

Yancey Ward said...

"And women are far more likely than men to identify as bisexual."

Not that there is anything wrong with that!

Tom T. said...

The 10% figure was determined long ago to be way too high. There was no science behind it; I think it became known that Kinsey just pulled that figure out of his ... well, you know.

mccullough said...

Maybe 10% was accurate if college students in the late 60s.

Also, with the draft, those identifying as gay would be higher.

iowan2 said...

So gay is a choice

Mr Wibble said...

But, again, that includes people who are saying they identify as bisexual. 72% of those LGBT-identifying Gen Zers say bisexual. And women are far more likely than men to identify as bisexual.

In other words, they're adopting an affection for social positioning and male attention.

Just some rando on the interwebz said...

Going by commercials on television I would have thought it was %25 or more.

Temujin said...

Yeah, it's almost a club membership with the yoots. Many just go along because they want to hand with the most desired club in town- at the moment. So the stats for the younger generation are skewed. If you checked in with the same people in 10-15 years, the numbers would be lower. Or....?

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Rory said...

"And women are far more likely..."

Might as well just stop it right there.

n.n said...

The transgender spectrum. Normalize, tolerate, or reject?

John henry said...

I thought that when the numbers were determined by SCIENCE! instead of pulled out of thin air the number of gay men was about 3% of all men.

I think lesbians were a bit more, though not much.

I've never heard a good explanation for why transgender are included in this group at all.

Unless they are also G/L.

If a woman identifying as a man likes sex with women, is she lesbian or straight?

John Henry

glenn said...

And what’s important to me about this? Exactly nothing. Just don’t do it in the street, it frightens the horses.

Mr Wibble said...

I like to say that polygamy will be normalized not through religious immigrants such as muslims, but by upper-middle-class white folks. They'll find some nice, normal looking married couple as the face of it: the husband is a programmer, the wife is an attorney, and they share a yoga-instructor girlfriend. The goal will be to appeal to men with the possibility of twice the pussy, while appealing to women that they can have the husband and kids and still keep her "queer" cred.

Ann Althouse said...

"So gay is a choice"

Identifying is a choice. Characterizing yourself is a matter of self-interpretation and saying whatever you say about that is clearly a choice. That's all the poll can count. Whether being gay is a choice is another matter and the poll has nothing to offer on that issue. You could have a poll on whether people believe that being gay is a choice, and what would be the source of that belief other than propaganda? I remember when left-wing people got mad at you if you DIDN'T believe it's a choice.

bleh said...

"LGBT" is a capacious and flexible term. If you are motivated to self-identify as LGBT, it is easy to do so given the myriad of "identities" and orientations encompassed by the term. It's trendy to associate with the group these days.

Anyway, regarding the percentage of the population that's actually gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender ... the stats I've seen have put the number at around 2-3%. And if you control for the phony bisexuals, the number is probably 2% or less.

Wince said...

The Gallup survey said!

"No, we're not homosexual, but we are willing to learn."

Ann Althouse said...

"... and what would be the source of that belief other than propaganda?"

To answer my own question: You might feel that your own sexual orientation is not subject to choice and observe some other people who seem to experience their sexuality similarly and therefore conclude that sexual orientation is not a matter of choice. Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice? There have been plenty of efforts and they never seem to work. Whether these efforts should even be made is a separate matter, but the lack of success seems obvious.

Gospace said...

Since rich liberals are pushing for young people (except for their OWN sons and daughters to identify a LGBTetcetcetc those numbers cannot be trusted. At all. "Coming out" brings approval from teachers and educators, a big influence in the lives of young people. Saying you want hormones and a sex changes brings adoration.

100 years from now all the doctors and liberal college professors promoting and encouraging fake sex change operations on youngsters will be viewed to be as evil, if not more evil, than Dr. Mengele.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Small promiscuous proportion of population produces noise passing all precedent of their percentage of political populace.

News at 11.

Paul said...

Help Ann... HELP!!!

I'm a Lesbian trapped in a man's body!!! So where do I figure in this?

I want to be counted to!

Achilles said...

I really wish “conservatives” would grow up and say “ who cares.”

Robert Cook said...

"So gay is a choice"

Logical thinking like that will get you...nowhere.

Bob Boyd said...

72% of those LGBT-identifying Gen Zers say bisexual. And women are far more likely than men to identify as bisexual.

It's a college fad.

Kay said...

I’m not entirely sure why the percentage of people who identify as bisexuals matters with regards to the poll.

Lewis Wetzel said...

You know what else people experience little sense of choice about?
Their handedness. Nobody thinks being left or right handed is a choice that they have made.
Yet in societies that discourage left handedness, fewer people are left handed. Weird, isn't it?

Lucid-Ideas said...

Heterosexuality - Orientation
Homosexuality - Orientation
Transsexuality - Orientation
Asexuality - Orientation
Pedophilia - Choice

Remember...they're already trying to go there. People are running out of logical fingers to plug these fallacy holes.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I remember the 10% assertion, then saw numbers that ranged from 2-4% depending on definition.

It is hard to understand what the rising generation actually means by "bisexual," as they don't all mean the same thing. If you listen to actual young people describe themselves in more detail you get things like "Well, I'm not really a stereotypical girl. I have some masculine characteristics. And I'm not having sex with anyone, but I could see myself maybe having sex with a woman." If you ask for a predominant identification, most have a very strong preference, they just aren't willing to call it absolute, because "you never know."

It has long been true that lesbian teens get pregnant at a higher rate than their straight age-mates. There is a subset of bisexual that is merely indiscriminate, especially under the influence of substances. As homosexuality is not only not as disfavored as previously, but positively lauded among those who wish to rebel or stand out in some way, it is not surprising that people who used to just keep quiet and try hard not to be gay are now uncloseted. This does not mean that our genetics - remember genetics and gayness? - have changed in a generation or two.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Homosexuality seems to be related to a number of predisposing genes, plus prenatal influences (and Greg Cochrane believes something viral is in this as well). As parents get to select in our out depending what else is on those genes, they will generally choose those options that result in lower likelihood of homosexuality. (Some few will make the opposite choices, yes.) It will not take long for the numbers to start going down. In 100 years this may be a non-issue.

rehajm said...

87.4 percent of people in commercials do...

Robert Cook said...

"Yet in societies that discourage left handedness, fewer people are left handed. Weird, isn't it?"

Not at all. In such societies, left-handed persons are coerced or "heavily encouraged" to learn how to write with their write hands.

Similarly, in societies that do not accept homosexuality (or bisexuality), such people hide their natures, often marrying and having children. I read an interview with a male teen prostitute years ago who said his clientele (in the Times Square area of NYC) were predominantly married businessmen with families from New Jersey.

Bob Boyd said...

A single drunken, face-first foray into the fur does not a bisexual make.

But you fuck one goat...

Michael said...

The goal will be to appeal to men with the possibility of twice the pussy, while appealing to women that they can have the husband and kids and still keep her "queer" cred.

Mr Wibble nails it. A lot of lifestyle choices are performative. Nothing new here. The 70s saw a plethora of stories about the joys of Open Marriage followed by stories in early 80s from feminists who bemoaned their experience with in these arrangements. Then in the 90s came an avalanche of lesbians coming out of the closet only to find in the post 9/11 world many of them reverting to traditional man/woman marriages. I've seen all of this from multiple friends in the circles I travelled.

Gordon Scott said...

How exactly did you go from: "we were told to think that gay people were all around — 1 in 10 people."

to

"So I think 5.6% is a surprisingly low number"

Because it looks like you just took some asserted propaganda to be factual, and have used that worldview ever since.

M. Maxwell said...

"Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice? There have been plenty of efforts and they never seem to work." ---Althouse

Men in prison, 4-year lesbians----those groups seem to be making a choice, even if it's a temporary choice, it's still significant. People that experiment for a certain length of time, --I know everybody likes to just write that off, but you are a product of all your actions, even the temporary ones. Actions speak louder than labels, and louder than whatever your chosen identity.

I'm surprised Gallup is still in business, after all the failed election polls. I always assume the opposite of whatever these (useless) polls say.

Bob Boyd said...

Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice? There have been plenty of efforts and they never seem to work.

Depends on which direction you're headed.

Yancey Ward said...

It is just rebelliousness in an increasingly conformist sort of way.

Robert Cook said...

"Heterosexuality - Orientation
Homosexuality - Orientation
Transsexuality - Orientation
Asexuality - Orientation
Pedophilia - Choice

"Remember...they're already trying to go there. People are running out of logical fingers to plug these fallacy holes."


I don't think anyone seriously believes pedophilia is a "choice." Why would anyone choose to pursue sexual satisfaction via behavior that is universally reviled? The choice comes in each pedophile's decision to act on his desires in real life, or not, or to try to access child porn, or not.

The essential difference is that children do not have equal agency with adults. They lack the physical, intellectual, and emotional wherewithal to make considered choices on par with adults to freely engage in sex with adults. They are not "consenting adults."

Mr Wibble said...

The 70s saw a plethora of stories about the joys of Open Marriage followed by stories in early 80s from feminists who bemoaned their experience with in these arrangements.

The open relationships are back. Dating sites are full of profiles of women who are married or in relationships. And it's not surprising at all, since back when gay marriage started winning in court the first thing I saw published were no less than four articles in major left-wing publications arguing that gays weren't monogamous and so straights had to rethink their expectations of monogamy.

Eleanor said...

I have a woman friend who was a promiscuous heterosexual teen. She had two marriages to men. The first ended in divorce, and the second left her a widow. She's now in a committed relationship with another woman who has always been a lesbian. My friend says this last relationship isn't about sex. It's about love and companionship. The sex is not a big part of it. If you ask her what her sexual orientation is, and her partner isn't around, she'll tell you she's a heterosexual woman who is willing to accommodate whatever makes her partner happy. From her history, people would say she's bisexual. Her partner thinks my friend is a lesbian who was conditioned to have sex with men by society. She understands why she's in denial about her true sexual orientation. Being in a homosexual relationship is definitely a choice for my friend, but maybe not for her partner.

gbarto said...

Greenwald suggests the decline in lesbians lines up with an increase in trans men.

Rick said...

Sometimes it seems the statistics are just propaganda.

Meade said...

It’s not uncommon for a male ginkgo tree to grow for 35 years or so and then one day just up and choose to fruit.

Mr Wibble said...

I really wish “conservatives” would grow up and say “ who cares.”

Conservatives were perfectly willing to be accommodating and adopt a "live and let live" attitude. The left wasn't. In the words of Michael Obama, "You will be made to care." They don't want accommodation and tolerance, they want you to bend the knee to progressive cultural diktats, because politics is downstream from culture, and because change, especially radical change, is holistic.

Gusty Winds said...

And women are far more likely than men to identify as bisexual.

KICK ASS!!!!

Lucid-Ideas said...

@Robert Cook

That distinction in the which side of the line between "choice" and "action" you make is the crux of ever ableist sexual aberration of the last 70 years. In other words, no, the same rationalization and normalization used to normalize fucking other dudes will - and is - being used to normalize pedophilia. Maybe not the actual act...but give them time.

Keep in mind we're talking about people who are already making the argument for minor's rights to chemically castrate themselves.

mikee said...

Self identification in surveys is highly suspect as a means of obtaining factual data.
When I was a mere middle school child, the Nixon administration ran a nationwide school survey on drug abuse. My home room group of extremely whitebread, suburban, clean-living Christian children reported everything from LSD abuse by teachers during classes, to student heroin addiction at about an 80% rate. And on such false data the War on Drugs raged into being.

I'll believe 5.6% when the same sex marriage rate hits that number, and not a moment before. Census data, a more controlled and validated survey, reports just over 1 million same sex couples, about half married and half unmarried, living together in the US. And about 69 million male+female couples. That comes out to 1.4% homosexual marriages+cohabitation.

While marriage and cohabitation aren't exactly correlated to preference of sex partner, find me a more accurate measure before you tell me 5.6% of the country is LGBTQ.

Mr Wibble said...

I have a woman friend who was a promiscuous heterosexual teen. She had two marriages to men. The first ended in divorce, and the second left her a widow. She's now in a committed relationship with another woman who has always been a lesbian. My friend says this last relationship isn't about sex. It's about love and companionship. The sex is not a big part of it. If you ask her what her sexual orientation is, and her partner isn't around, she'll tell you she's a heterosexual woman who is willing to accommodate whatever makes her partner happy. From her history, people would say she's bisexual. Her partner thinks my friend is a lesbian who was conditioned to have sex with men by society. She understands why she's in denial about her true sexual orientation. Being in a homosexual relationship is definitely a choice for my friend, but maybe not for her partner.

R.S. McCain liked to quote the second-wave feminist that "feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice." Sexual orientation as a social or political act is nothing new.

Oso Negro said...

I changed my sexual orientation from monogamy to polyamory. But the women still have to be in their 20s and there can only be one penis involved. And I learned that three women at a time is one too many.

Bob Boyd said...

It’s not uncommon for a male ginkgo tree to grow for 35 years or so and then one day just up and choose to fruit.

I laughed. Hope that doesn't make me ginkgophobic.

Gusty Winds said...

Althouse said...Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice?

What about incarcerated inmates? Perhaps not really a "choice" but a necessity of circumstance. Maybe its and acquired taste. But perhaps desperation of available sexual activity and partners does not define a prisoners "identity".

"So male inmate 1287, do you perform oral sex on other inmates"
"Of course I do"
"So can I assume you've always been gay?"
"No, I'm a cis-gender hetero male. I just like cigarettes."

Gusty Winds said...

@Oso Negro

Atta-Boy!

Yancey Ward said...

"It’s not uncommon for a male ginkgo tree to grow for 35 years or so and then one day just up and choose to fruit."

Kind of like Bruce Jenner.

Mr Wibble said...

And I learned that three women at a time is one too many.

A skilled man can handle four woman at once. Six, if his toes are long.

JMW Turner said...

"Bisexuality doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night."...Woody Allen, or was it Oscar Wilde? Naw, William Shakespeare!

Gusty Winds said...

Hugh Hefner admitted to engaging in homosexual experimentation. But it seemed more like he was receiving oral sex in the infamous grotto. Is that gay, or is it a “go ahead if you want to” sort of thing??

It’s probably a pretty confusing environment. Not well lit. A lot of people mulling around underwater. If you’re not careful, or paying attention, you might assume it’s Karen McDougal blowing you, but when you look down you realize someone invited Andrew Sullivan to the party, and he’s not wearing a mask.

After that party you just identify as a hound dog.

Mr Wibble said...

Personally, I view sexual orientation as an oversimplification. Sexual attraction and behavior are two separate entities, which are both complex functions of a mix of other attributes and environmental factors. Sex is hardwired so deeply into our basic psychological and physical functions that you can't disentangle it from everything else. Are some people born gay/straight? Obviously. But more importantly I think most people are at least susceptible to environmental/biological factors. That's not to say, bisexual. Merely that under certain conditions and certain triggers or mental/physical states, people will be more willing to engage in activities that the normally wouldn't.

n.n said...

Self identification in surveys is highly suspect as a means of obtaining factual data.

That's true. There are a lot of politically congruent ("=") people... persons who are emotional and socially invested in normalizing transgenderism (e.g. two mothers, conflation of sex and gender, the Rainbow exclusion, genderphobia).

n.n said...

What about incarcerated inmates? Perhaps not really a "choice" but a necessity of circumstance.

Yrs, it's not transgender, but rather kneeling (i.e. submission) or rape... rape-rape (i.e. force).

Francisco D said...

Robert Cook said...
I don't think anyone seriously believes pedophilia is a "choice." Why would anyone choose to pursue sexual satisfaction via behavior that is universally reviled?

All sexual behavior involves a significant degree of choice. Pedophile choose to act on their predilections. They are not forced to do so. People often choose to act in ways that are socially reviled because it offers them a great deal of physical and emotional satisfaction.

Meade said...

“I laughed. Hope that doesn't make me ginkgophobic.”

It’s not an irrational fear to be terrified of stepping on a ginkgo fruit. Damn things stink like high heaven.

DavidUW said...

I remember the 10% assertion, then saw numbers that ranged from 2-4% depending on definition.
>>
Like many here, I heard the same thing.

Then I looked around my high school class and tried to figure out who was gay.

You'll be shocked to find out that maybe I counted 1-2% of the class.

10% was always bull. Another "science" hoax put to the gullible to get them to disbelieve their own eyes.

Steven said...

Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice?

Define "orientation"?

Certainly you were a professor on a major university campus long enough to have seen the LUG (Lesbian Until Graduation) phenomenon.

PM said...

Outed in the 70s: he's gay.
Outed in the 21s: he's homophobic.

Quaestor said...

Given Gallup's polling record over the last several years, a 1.1% swing in any of their measurements is probably meaningless.

Furthermore, I suspect a significant number of Gen-Zs and Millennials are convinced that homosexuality and gender dysphoria are cool, that membership in those categories bestows elite status. It's the madness of crowds, the percentage of self-identified National Socialists enjoyed a bump in 1933. The appeal of the in group is always formidable.

Gusty Winds said...

Does anybody know if they included the Jesuits in the survey???

Original Mike said...

Blogger Meade said..."It’s not uncommon for a male ginkgo tree to grow for 35 years or so and then one day just up and choose to fruit."

When I bought my house there was a large honey locust in the backyard. Assuming it was planted when the house was built it was 35 years old. It did not put out those huge brown pods. Then, about 5 years in it started to pod VERY profusely. What a chore that became. 25 or more 30-gallon waste bags a year collected and disposed of. Many hours on my hands on knees on the roof, removing pods. I hate taking down mature trees, so I soldiered on for a decade but finally enough was enough. When we replaced the roof the tree was removed.

jaydub said...

In those percentages, I think you also have to allow for cis males like me who sometimes exhibit lesbian tendencies.

Jim Gust said...

"Help Ann... HELP!!!

I'm a Lesbian trapped in a man's body!!! So where do I figure in this?

I want to be counted to!"

That actually happened to a fraternity brother of mine. After college he realized he was gay and found a partner. The two of them both decided that they were really gay women, not gay men, and so began sex change operations together. The were employed by the state of Massachusetts, which paid for the whole thing and gave them plenty of time off to recover from surgery.

Bob Boyd said...

Deciding to identifying as bisexual is an easy way for a privileged, white college girl to become part of an oppressed minority.

Meade said...

@Original: You’re a more patient man than I am. I would’ve hoiked that thorny sucker out year 1. My tree; my choice.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Who still trusts Gallup poll numbers, on anything? Most polls are just politically motivated clickbait bullshit, and best ignored.

Achilles said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Robert Cook said...

"That distinction in the which side of the line between "choice" and "action" you make is the crux of ever ableist sexual aberration of the last 70 years. In other words, no, the same rationalization and normalization used to normalize fucking other dudes will - and is - being used to normalize pedophilia."

I would say that pedophilia is a normal phenomenon, given that it appears in all nations and cultures. By "normal" I do not mean it is commonplace or is acceptable, just that it is something that exists throughout human societies. I don't know if pedophilia is an "orientation" or a "pathology," but I do not think pedophiles just decide to be sexually aroused by children. A good number of people have volcanic, even potentially murderous rage, but they transgress only when they act on that rage and harm others.

Again, given the crucial requirement of equal agency and of capacity for free and equal consent between or among people, pedophilia will not and should not ever be made legal. Consenting adults may engage in sexual relations with one another, but once one adult coerces another adult into any sexual interaction, it becomes rape. Sex between adults and children is always rape.

Original Mike said...

I do bonsai. I love trees and the honey locust has a very attractive branching structure. But man, those pods… Even the squirrels wouldn't eat them. Late in the winter when they were getting desperate they'd naw on them a little, them spit them out.

It didn't have thorns. Apparently the the pods and thorns had been breed out of them. But according to an arborist friend, sometimes when they get old the original genetics can take over.

Robert Cook said...

"All sexual behavior involves a significant degree of choice. Pedophile choose to act on their predilections. They are not forced to do so. People often choose to act in ways that are socially reviled because it offers them a great deal of physical and emotional satisfaction."

Of course. But the discussion is not about behavior, it's about innate orientation/predilection. I'd guess (and hope) there are pedophiles who choose never to act on their desires in any way, because they know such behavior is always wrong, and they have enough self-control to check their behavior.

I harp on this point because I do think sexual orientation is essentially part of one's being, and is not just chosen. It is behavior that is chosen.

Tinderbox said...

Surprised it's not more like 85% among millennials/GenZ, hearing them talk.

Lucid-Ideas said...

"Sex between adults and children is always rape."

Until an ever increasing volume of noise comes from people deciding that it isn't, at which point you get to reside with the rest of us bigots. I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm commenting on the times. I for one still reside in the homosexuality = choice camp, which makes me practically Adolf Hitler, but in cat form.

Scott said...

Around 1991 I met a hot guy at The 19 bar in Minneapolis. He was athletic and had dirty blond hair but had the dark eyes and nose of a Lakota guy. He smiled at me and that was that. Moved in together but we broke up in 1992. After a decent interval we got back in touch with each other. He took on another partner (a great guy, I might add) and his relationship lasted almost 20 years. I moved to the Northeast and had several relationships; the last one lasting 11 years.

The hot guy I met in the bar and I have decided to get back together and give it another try after thirty years. I just bought a house in Southeastern Minnesota, and he plans to move down from Minneapolis to share the space with me next month. We talk to each other every night. I feel very lucky that I can continue my job remotely after the move -- thank God for COVID 19.

The point is, the statistics and acronyms and gay equals paedophile smears come across to me as irrelevant. Believe what you want. I'm just happy that we live in a society that has enough room for two old gay men of different races to live peacefully together and not be harassed by the virtuous. And we'll continue to acquire ammunition for our AR15 rifles should that situation change in the future.

Readering said...

Meanwhile, in Putin's Russia . . . .

BarrySanders20 said...

Scott said...
"I'm just happy that we live in a society that has enough room for two old gay men of different races to live peacefully together and not be harassed by the virtuous."

I don't know what's it's like, and certainly don't know your experience, but the gay friends I have (really) say that the only people they have a real fear of are the certain (but not all) young male urban blacks and Latinos who are aggressively anti-gay/ really are gay-bashers. I have not yet convinced them to conceal carry when they are downtown and might encounter such misanthopes who focus hate on gays (and yet are presumptively oppressed so nobody is supposed to notice).

Amadeus 48 said...

I remember that a longitudinal survey and study 20-30 years ago put the percentage of the population that were homosexuals at about 1.5%, with an acknowledgement that there was likely underreporting and the actual number was probably 2.5-3.5%. That sounds reasonable.

Have mores changed? Undoubtedly.

Scott said...

@BarrySanders20

I read "presumptively oppressed" and laughed. Sarcasm, right?

Here's a thought experiment to try: Assume as a baseline that nobody is oppressed, nothing is political, and nothing can be presumed about anyone based on their race. Then, explain the latest news about a carjacking. Or about what comes out of the mouth of a local politician. It just looks and sounds like insanity. And it is.

My once-and-future boyfriend and I will be close enough to the Twin Cities for family events such as weddings and funerals, but far away enough not to get swept up in the urban madness. I think it's going to be nice.

Amadeus 48 said...

Good luck, Scott. I hope it turns out well for you.

Jersey Fled said...

I remember a radio interview maybe 20 years ago with a leading gay activist. He was asked why he persisted in using the 10% number when every survey post Kinsey was much lower.

He replied that he thought 10% sounded better.

In his mind, whatever was most useful became the truth.

Sound familiar?

EC in NJ said...

LUGs - Lesbians Until Graduation

Francisco D said...

Robert Cook said...I harp on this point because I do think sexual orientation is essentially part of one's being, and is not just chosen. It is behavior that is chosen.

I agree completely.

Sebastian said...

"3.1% — are identifying as bisexual . . . And women are far more likely than men to identify as bisexual."

Right. I have never met a "bisexual" man.

Joe Smith said...

As a nation we'd better start having a ton of kids right now.

In twenty years we'll all be gay (nttawwt) and there'll be nobody left to fill the social security coffers.

On the plus side, we'll all look fabulous.

Joe Smith said...

"Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice?"

I don't believe it's a choice at all. You are what you are.

But the big danger these days is that parents and institutions are rewarded (with social status, web site hits, TV shows, etc.), for essentially programming kids to be gay, trans, or other.

Anything other than what they might naturally have been letting nature take its course.

Kids as young as 4 or 5 years old do not have the ability to resist this kind of attention and pressure.

It will make for some very fucked up adults in the future...

Mark said...

Yes. It is entirely subjective belief.

None of it is ontological.

n.n said...

Sex between adults and children is always rape.

Perhaps not involuntary, but superior exploitation.

Drago said...

Tom T.: "The 10% figure was determined long ago to be way too high. There was no science behind it; I think it became known that Kinsey just pulled that figure out of his ... well, you know."

Kinsey collected the "data" for the 10% estimate from interviews with a large number of male inmates and Kinsey didnt ask if they were homosexual, he only asked if the inmate had engaged in a homosexual act while in prison.

The lefties are very creative when they need a fake stat.

See: more birth defects due to physical abuse by males against pregnant women than ALL other causes COMBINED.

That one is still in textbooks.

Ken B said...

Here is a chance to learn the difference between expressed preferences and revealed preferences.

People say they “identify” because it’s what the cool kids do.

Once you understand that “cis” means “lumpen” everything becomes much clearer.

Ken B said...

Interesting that you swallowed that 10% bullshit.

How many unarmed black men did cops kill in 2919? Are you thinking over a thousand? Over ten thousand?

Joe Smith said...

"Hugh Hefner admitted to engaging in homosexual experimentation. But it seemed more like he was receiving oral sex in the infamous grotto. Is that gay, or is it a “go ahead if you want to” sort of thing??"

I guess if it's dark and you can't see who's performing the act...

But the scratchy beard thing would be very distracting.

Ken B said...

It’s hard to take “gay is a choice” seriously. If gay is a choice then strains a choice. That's implausible. I know the effect that Jodie Foster or Veronica Lake have on me. It’s instantaneous and involuntary.

n.n said...

While there are conflicts between trans/inter or neogenders (e.g. male sex with feminine gender including identification/indoctrination/corruption) and females, the two mother or two father deception, semantic games, conceptual corruption, political congruence ("="), genderphobia, etc., there's nothing inherently wrong with people in the transgender (i.e. state or process of divergence from normal) spectrum (e.g. homosexual) as individuals or couplets. Time will tell if social progress will persist to liberalize and seek to normalize other arrangements (e.g. friends with "benefits", rape vs rape-rape, three hole monty, pedophilia). Once you go Pro-Choice, everything is possible.

Mark said...

Look, every man and every woman -- every one -- is made complementary for each other.

This is undeniably revealed in the body, whereby the body of the man is specifically made for joinder with the body of a woman and vice versa, with the man transmitting procreative genetic material, which is distinct from that created by the woman, into the reproductive tract of the woman where it is met by and joins with procreative genetic material created by the woman. That is fact. That is truth. That is science.

While it is certainly possible to do so, and while one might get a certain pleasure from it, the reproductive organ of the male is not designed or otherwise meant to go into some facsimile of the complementary part of the woman, but is meant to go into the woman. That is, our sex organs are made to go into other sex organs and not another person's digestive tract.

We are ALL made to be "heterosexual."

Now, don't start with this dodge that LGB is all about "love." That is NOT what is distinct about homosexuality. A man SHOULD love another man. A woman SHOULD love another woman. Jesus, God, and all the religions agree. Certainly I love a lot of men. I love my father, my brothers, other male family members and friends. But I love them in the manner proper to a man loving another man -- which does not involve us having sex with each other. THAT is the very definition of LGB.

Man is made for woman and vice versa. That's the way it is. Some may want it to be different, but it is not. Some might genuinely have sexual desires for the same sex, but that does not change the natural order of things. No one is "made" LGB, and if they were, they would be made for natural extinction.

And it is absurd beyond belief that such things must actually be spelled out.

Mark said...

I've never heard a good explanation for why transgender are included in this group at all

Because it is all power ideology, JH. L and G and B and T are all in common cause for the acquisition and wielding of power.

Mark said...

I really wish “conservatives” would grow up and say “ who cares.”

Most conservatives really are content to just go about living their lives and letting other people live their own lives.

But, of course, that is NEVER allowed in the progressive dictatorship. It is not conservatives who do not say "who cares," it is the progressive lot that says YOU DAMN SURE WILL CARE. You will be made to care. You will be made to approve and applaud and promote. You WILL embrace the lie.

n.n said...

It’s hard to take “gay is a choice” seriously.

It's both: choice and bias. Sexual orientation is a sex-correlated gender attribute. The boys chase girls chase boys orientation is the normal distribution. The boys chase boys and girls chase girls is transgender or divergent from normal. The incels h/t social progressives, are trans-social. The terms "gay" and "lesbian" are cultural appropriations with the intent to socially distance trans/homosexuals from others in the spectrum, perhaps motivated by genderphobia. The Rainbow of inclusion is exclusive. Political congruence ("=") is a policy of selective exclusion with sociopolitical benefits. So, normalize, tolerate, or reject?

Mark said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Most conservatives really are content to just go about living their lives and letting other people live their own lives.

Liberalism (e.g. libertarianism) is not a viable option. People... persons must commit, or be canceled, and celebrate lions, lionesses, and their cubs. The bigots are progressive and political congruence ("=") is the ideology of Choice.

Mark said...

The problem is that there are too many Bill Clinton's in our culture. Like Pilate and truth, too much confusion over "what the meaning of 'is' is."

Too many people -- way too many -- confuse "is" and "does." They are not the same thing. Too many think that "does" means "is," when it really does not.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

But, again, that includes people who are saying they identify as bisexual. 72% of those LGBT-identifying Gen Zers say bisexual. And women are far more likely than men to identify as bisexual.

IOW, in the Diversity Olympics, "LGBTQ" ranks higher than "female", especially than "white female".

So a white female leftist can jump up the diversity hierarchy by claiming to be "bisexual". Hold hands with a few girls, maybe kiss one or two, and your "victim" score has jumped way up.

IIRC, the 10% number came from a survey of male prisoners asking how many had had any sexual experiences with another man.

So, get raped in prison? "You're gay."

The BS of the Left is never ending

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Ann Althouse said...
Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice?

Leaving aside the people doing "reversion therapy", 10 - 20 years ago I was reading about "LUGs" Lesbian Until Graduation. Women who "identified as lesbian" in college, and then went straight once they were out in the real world.

That should qualify, no?

Robert Cook said...

"So, get raped in prison? 'You're gay.'

"The BS of the Left is never ending"


That doesn't sound remotely like anything I've ever heard from the left.

Robert Cook said...

"Leaving aside the people doing 'reversion therapy,' 10 - 20 years ago I was reading about 'LUGs' Lesbian Until Graduation. Women who 'identified as lesbian' in college, and then went straight once they were out in the real world.

"That should qualify, no?"


Not necessarily. Could be the girls who "went straight" after graduation remained lesbians, but pursued the straight life to satisfy family, professional, or social expectations, or the girls who were lesbians in college were never really lesbians, but gave in to peer pressure, or wanted to experiment in the safe and enclosed college environment. Or, could be they were bisexuals who had greater attraction to one gender than the other for longer term commitments. Or, the actual prevalence of LUGs could have been greatly overstated.

I'm Not Sure said...

"It will make for some very fucked up adults in the future..."

If they don't end up killing themselves first.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Achilles said...
I really wish “conservatives” would grow up and say “ who cares.”

Heterosexual marriage is the foundation of our society. On average, men who marry women become more productive members of society.

Children raised in two parent homes where one parent is male, and the other is female, do better than any other arrangement. Men and women are different, and mothers and fathers provide different benefits to their children, both of which are needed.

What you do with other consenting adults in the privacy of your own home is something I don't really care about.

But when you demand to get benefits (like marriage) that you haven't earned, when you demand that I "affirm" or "respect" your choice?

Then I get to say GFY.

If you force me to care, and the Left always insists on forcing us to care, I'm going to care for your utter destruction.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Robert Cook said...
"So, get raped in prison? 'You're gay.'

"The BS of the Left is never ending"

That doesn't sound remotely like anything I've ever heard from the left.


It's exactly what you've heard from every single person who professed to take the "10%" claim seriously.

Because that's what Kinsey used to get there. By adding up every male who had a "homosexual experience", including those who got raped by other men

Lewis Wetzel said...

Not at all. In such societies, left-handed persons are coerced or "heavily encouraged" to learn how to write with their write hands.
Nope. This happens in illiterate societies as well.
What they do is when the infant reaches for something with his left hand, they give it a little slap and encourage him or her to use his or her left hand. In these societies, people have no memory of ever being left handed and are indistinguishable from being right handed, as far as science can tell.
FWIW, there is no "left handed" gene. You can't do a biological test to determine handedness. You have to observe behavior or rely on a biometric test that basically tells you which hand is used more often.
There is also a link between handedness and sexual orientation. People who self report as homosexual also have a significantly above-average chance of being left handed, gay women more so than gay men.
Being left handed is also linked to many of the same pathologies linked to being homosexual -- greater chance of depression, drug addiction, law-enforcement involvement, obesity, and low birth weight.
Handedness is a fascinating phenomena.

iowan2 said...

Didn't Masters and Johnson do the most thorough examination of the percentage of homosexuality?

Memory is something like the gay community was saying4-5%. Masters and Johnson came up with ~2%. They said that the gay community said "2% of the males and 2% of the females= 4%. That was their only explanation for, on their opinion, for the inflated numbers.

Rosalyn C. said...

I was on a six month all women meditation course and later found out it was nicknamed the "couples" course because of all the lesbian relationships which blossomed. I think it's been commonly accepted for a long time that women are more fluid sexually than men, more likely to be with another woman than men are. However when I traveled in Greece I learned that men distinguish between being on top or bottom and only the bottoms are considered homosexual.

I think the numbers of LGBT self identification are more of a minimum.

"Has anyone ever shown that they've changed their sexual orientation by choice?" I'm not sure I understand the question but I would answer yes. I've known people who identified as lesbian and then later were in committed monogamous hetersexual relationships and never went back to being a lesbian. I wouldn't call that being bisexual either. Some people define bisexuality as meaning people have the ability to be sexually attracted to either sex or either gender, but for other people it means having a need to be involved sexually with men and women in the same time period.

If you mean changing your sexual orientation by choice as changing because of societal pressure, that's not really by choice. That doesn't work. But if it's truly because of an internal transformation, yes that's "by choice."

Balfegor said...

5.6% sounds remarkably high to me, but I think a lot of people who would have identified as heterosexual now identify as "bisexual" because there's now this widespread idea of sexuality as a kind of continuum. So someone might be 95% "straight" in the sense thst he/she is almost exclusively attracted to the opposite sex, but without finding the thought of homosexual intercourse. That said, homosexuality is also a learned behavior, conditioned by social circumstances. I think Romans and Spartans were basically like modern humans -- I doubt they had a "gay gene" at high frequencies -- but homosexual intercourse (if not exclusive homosexuality) seems to have been quite common, at least amongst the wealthy.
Nero, for example, or Hadrian. Who knows if the racy gossip that comes down to us through Suetonius is accurate, but judging from that material, the rate of bisexuality amongst the ruling class was probably a lot higher than 5%. So the rate of "real" bisexuality might genuinely be significantly higher amongst younger generations, as their culture has nudged them in that direction. Rates of homosexuality seem mostly stable, so I'd guess 1-2% is about the natural rate.

Unknown said...

Reversion therapy is not for those who were born gay. It is for the children and teenagers who were groomed into the 'lifesyle' by born gays.

n.n said...

That said, homosexuality is also a learned behavior, conditioned by social circumstances. I think Romans and Spartans were basically like modern humans

Sodomy was also a behavior of choice used to force boys and girls to kneel. Perhaps that's where it acquired its social stigma. That, and fecal transmission that was common in unsanitary environments.

GingerBeer said...

Some people will do anything to have a date on New Year's Eve.

Narr said...

I've only had sex with five people in my life, and that was a weird night.

JK--stole that one.

These crap stats were being bandied about in soc class back in the 70s. I never bought the 10% gay idea, and to the degree I've read about it since, 2-3% of the population sounds reasonable.

There's a lot of "Greco-Roman" same-sex sex in prison still, it seems: the crucial difference isn't in equipage but between fucker and fuckee.

I remember reading books about the Foreign Legion in which gay sex was admitted to, but out of desperation not desire . . .

Narr
Ooo-kay, mon caporal

Robert Cook said...

"It's exactly what you've heard from every single person who professed to take the "10%" claim seriously."

Wrong.

If you want to use prison as an example of situational altering of the choice of gender of one's sexual partners, only the men who choose to have sex with other men in prison can be included in that cohort, not the men who are raped.

Robert Cook said...

"Because that's what Kinsey used to get there. By adding up every male who had a 'homosexual experience,' including those who got raped by other men."

Iyiyiyi!

insey did not purport that those who were raped were homosexuals. The stats about prison sex only records the number of men who had had homosexual experiences. Having homosexual experiences in prison does not, by definition, make one a homosexual.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Robert Cook said...
Kinsey did not purport that those who were raped were homosexuals. The stats about prison sex only records the number of men who had had homosexual experiences. Having homosexual experiences in prison does not, by definition, make one a homosexual.

Kinsey purported that every single one of those men in prison who had a homosexual experience, including those who were raped, were "homosexual"

That is where "10%" came from.

Without including the rape victims (oral and anal) they couldn't get to the bigger number. They couldn't push their political agenda.

And so the Left has continually embraced that garbage number. But by doing so, they are embracing the garbage behind that garbage number.

They are embracing Kinsey's defining men who were raped in prison as "homosexual".

Kansas City said...

Interesting read on this thread. Most of the takes are reasonable. Some very funny. Almost none unreasonable.

My view is the statistical game is unreliable, probably even more so on this subject than the typical political/advocacy debate where both sides use unreliable statistics.

The gay guys I know all say they knew from beginning. The lesbians I know don't particularly like me, so I have no insight there. Of course, a lot of straight girls don't like me either, but it seems more common with lesbians.

As to the comments, I think n.n. was the smartest, although I must confess I did not understand about 1/3 of what he [?] said (it started out easy to follow) - repeated below:

It's both: choice and bias. Sexual orientation is a sex-correlated gender attribute. The boys chase girls chase boys orientation is the normal distribution. The boys chase boys and girls chase girls is transgender or divergent from normal. The incels h/t social progressives, are trans-social. The terms "gay" and "lesbian" are cultural appropriations with the intent to socially distance trans/homosexuals from others in the spectrum, perhaps motivated by genderphobia. The Rainbow of inclusion is exclusive. Political congruence ("=") is a policy of selective exclusion with sociopolitical benefits. So, normalize, tolerate, or reject?

Pat said...

Claiming to be bi gets you a guaranteed spot on the victimhood bus, whereas without it, you are one of the folks who has to get out and push (no room for "allies" on the actual bus itself). And you can evade same-sex passes by saying you're just not into that particular person.

Craig Howard said...

Men in prison, 4-year lesbians----those groups seem to be making a choice,

People who have engaged in homosexual activity are not necessarily gay.

So, yes, there are choices being made.

Being gay implies an exclusively homosexual sexual attraction.

J Melcher said...

How many phenotypical females discovered an alternative orientation after a sexually-disappointing marriage? And whence arises that disappointment?

Just wondering if surveys on this stuff include questions about the relative "skillfulness" or "clumsiness" of partners.

Joanne Jacobs said...

When AIDS was spreading, researchers tried very hard to figure out how many men were having sex with men. (It's not a perfect measure of male homosexuality, because some gay men aren't and some non-gay men are, but it's in the ballpark.) Their estimate was 2% to 4%, as I recall. Andrew Sullivan wrote that he thought 3% was accurate, more or less. Nobody believed the 10%, which was made up by Kinsey.

I don't remember the estimate for females, because they weren't an AIDS vector. I think it was lower.

Linda Fox said...

The original stats from Kinsey were invalid (many of his subjects were prisoners). Kinsey added all the guys (and women) into the total who:
- were in the service, and may have engaged in a single act during their time in
- had sex for money
- were drunk, and possibly in a blackout state
- were in single-sex schools, underage, and never after participated in anything like that
- were forced to submit to rape by a Same Sex predator

Once you take those out of the totals, you have the same rough percentages as everyone else found - about 2-3% hard-core, lifetime homosexual.

Add in around another 5% who might occasionally have sex with someone of their sex.

The vast percentage of those who are causing the numbers to rise are occasionals. Many of the girls are on the autism spectrum, or otherwise vulnerable.