LGBT Identification Rises to 5.6% of the US Population in Latest Estimate (Lesbians are decreasing % wise, while B & T are increasing)

by BEB to /s/GenderCritical from news.gallup.com

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[–]Finnegan7921 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The increase of bi people among the two most recent age groups is so telling of people just searching for an identity. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of "Millennials" who identify as bi are the ones born in the 90s.

[–]BEB[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Here's another article on it from THE WASHINGTON POST w some excerpts. Paywall but you should be able to read it:

““The rigid lines around gender and sexuality are just opening up for everybody,” Hammack said. “Young people are just doing it. … They’re leading this revolution, and they’re forcing scientists to take a closer look…More than half of LGBT adults identify as bisexual, the Gallup survey data found, while a quarter say they are gay, 12 percent identify as lesbian, 11 percent as transgender and 3 percent as another term, such as queer. (Respondents could select multiple responses.) That means 3.1 percent of Americans identify as bisexual…

…Research from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law has similarly found that a key driver of the growth in the LGBT community has been a surge in bisexual women and girls. Bisexual women make up the largest group of LGBT adults — about 35 percent, according to a Williams Institute analysis of data from three population-based surveys. More than one in 10 U.S. high school youth identifies as lesbian, gay or bisexual. And among them, 75 percent are female and 77 percent identify as bisexual…

And in Generation Z, bisexual people make up an even greater share of the LGBT community — 72 percent said they identify as bisexual. This means that nearly 12 percent of all Gen Z adults identify as bisexual, and about 2 percent each identify as gay, lesbian or transgender…In a similar way, among those who Hammack surveyed for his research, young people who were assigned female at birth were more likely to identify as nonbinary, meaning they are neither male nor female — or they identify as a combination of both..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/02/24/gen-z-lgbt/

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Bisexual women make up the largest group of LGBT adults — about 35 percent, according to a Williams Institute analysis of data from three population-based surveys. More than one in 10 U.S. high school youth identifies as lesbian, gay or bisexual. And among them, 75 percent are female and 77 percent identify as bisexual…

Seems Wapo and the Williams Institute are mixing up a lot of different data sets, blending different groups and using language intended to blur/confuse here.

In the first sentence, the focus is adults and women. In the second, it's kids in HS. And although I think the %s in the third sentence refer to the "one in ten" in HS who "identify as" L,G or B, it's written confusingly enough that some readers probably will think the %s apply to the adults in the first sentence - many more of whom presumably actually are bisexual coz they are adults with considerable sexual experience, as opposed to those HS kids who probably have had less sexual experience and are merely "identifying as" bisexual at the present time.

[–]anxietyaccount8 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm sure some of these bi-identifying women are just trying to fit in, but for others, they really do feel bi. It makes sense that LGBT identification would increase as society became more accepting of it. From the perspective of radical feminism, I'm not seeing how this is a bad thing.

[–]adungitit 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It makes sense that LGBT identification would increase as society became more accepting of it.

Bisexuality is increasing, not homosexuality. From my own experiences, most bi people are women who are open to their boyfriend's threesomes and so deep in the objectification of women that they've developed a sort of sexual attraction to it from the POV of the male gaze, and men who are so pornsick that they don't even have a sexuality aimed at a certain sex but rather at whatever form of exploitation and fetish is currently trending in porn. I don't see a trace of the kind of middle finger to gender that I used to see among gay people and even a lot if not most of gay men now are trying desperately to fit into the misogynistic af masculine subculture and get the patriarchal respect of their "bros".

Now, what sex people get down and dirty with wouldn't be a problem per se, it's more telling of how bi people have come to dominate LGBT discussions with their privileged ideas, turn discrimination from a concrete thing into vapid nonsense like "People don't believe me when I tell them my sexuality!", adapt homosexual relations to their obnoxious af heteronormativity and demand to be seen as equally victimised and disadvantaged as same-sex couples because they jack it off to gay porn or have a weird fetish. And ofc, worst of all, bi people are the ones pushing the "gender is all in the soul <3" horseshit onto everyone else.

[–]MarkTwainiac 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Gallup found that 15.9% of Generation Z "identify as" LGBT, a significantly higher rate than find amongst Millennials and other earlier-born generations.

But since Gallup defines Gen Z as people born 1997-2002, I'm not sure how reflective of enduring reality and meaningful this finding really is. The recent poll was conducted in 2020, so the people polled in the Gen Z group would have ranged from age 18 to 23 at the oldest.

At 23, the human brain still isn't fully developed yet. Lots of people are still figuring out and coming to terms with their sexuality in their 20s. This has always been true - especially for those who are lesbians, gay and bi, who have to deal with the homophobia of others and the homophobia they've internalized. But it's especially true for those who have come of age since dawn of Facebook, YouTube other social media and smart phones whose social lives since puberty have been spent largely online - and who have spent the bulk of the past year under COVID-19 restrictions that have further limited the chance for RL social interactions and sexual exploration.

I actually think it's sort of irresponsible for Gallup to be asking young people still in their formative years to tell presumably older adult strangers who work as Gallup pollsters what their sexual orientation is. Young people are already so caught up in pigeonholing themselves and others with labels related to sex and sexuality that put everyone into constricting boxes as it is - why encourage them to do more?

By saying that, I don't mean to suggest that young people shouldn't be trying to figure out their own sexual orientation and looking to find their own tribes based on things they have in common, including sexual orientation. Self-exploration and self-definition I'm all for. I just think there's a big difference between finding and knowing yourself and labelling yourself in the eyes of others. In fact, I think that the new habit of wearing identity badges and announcing your own "gender identity" and sexual orientation to the whole world actually gets in the way of self-discovery and self-acceptance.

I think it's irresponsible for Gallup to take the responses of these young people from Gen Z at face value too.

As the last couple of US election cycles show, people tend to give pollsters the answers they think are the "correct" ones that they believe pollsters and polling orgs will approve of. Young people age 23 and under tend to be hyper-aware of what other people think of them and highly desirous of fitting in and not causing offense - much more so than older adults. Therefore I'd imagine the Gen Z respondents would be extremely likely to have given Gallup the answers seen as most fashionable, with it, "inclusive" and edgy.

Also, from everything I've read and the young people I know, youngsters in Gen Z are much less likely to have had any or much in the way of IRL sexual relationships at this point in their lives than members of previous generations did. As a result, I think they are probably less likely to know themselves and their sexuality than people of earlier generations did at the same age. That's not a criticism of young people today - it's simply a reason why adult polling orgs should take what young people under age 23 say about their sexuality with a grain of salt, or lay off them altogether.

Since being part of "LGBT" is such a fad amongst young people in the US today, I'm actually surprised that only 15.9% of the youth age 18-23 in the poll "identified" as "LGBT." I would have guessed the % would be higher.

[–]adungitit 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

youngsters in Gen Z are much less likely to have had any or much in the way of IRL sexual relationships at this point in their lives than members of previous generations did

I feel like a huge proportion of the bi crowd has discovered their interests solely through porn rather than any actual attraction to the same sex. They are more attracted to whatever objectifying fetish than to other human bodies. Although you can argue that for male heterosexuality this has always been the norm: men are attracted more to other men's caricatures of women than to actual women, to the point where most cannot even masturbate without the assistance of other men's fantasies.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

men are attracted more to other men's caricatures of women than to actual women, to the point where most cannot even masturbate without the assistance of other men's fantasies.

This might be true of some/many men who've grown up not in the RL world, but in artificial landscapes/environs saturated with images from advertising, pop culture and porn - but I don't think it's true of boys/men overall across time.

[–]adungitit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Even before porn was widespread men were jacking each other off about some twisted objectified notion of womanhood. They never saw women as human beings, and if anything, men across time have shown even more how much they despise women and how they think of them as subhuman breeding stock. They are very much in love with the idea of women as sex dolls, not women themselves, and this has always been the case.

[–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I agree your portrayal fits some men, but I don't agree it has "always been the case" for all men in all cultures at all times in history. Lots of boys and men over the course of human history have been besotted by RL girls and women. And many have been envious and covetous of our bodies as well, which is a main reason "trans" today is such a big thing.

[–]adungitit 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The fact that men can fall in love with some objectified idea of womanhood doesn't mean they love women. And all cultures are patriarchal, men throughout history have all independently decided that their mothers and sisters are less worthy and able to do anything but childrearing. They all decided that women should be under their control.

As for the trans issue, men want to become women so they can turn into the objectified caricatures they've been trained to covet all their lives from a distance, women become men to be treated as human beings. It's bog-standard patriarchy, but large parts of GC pretend like the trans side has invented the whole concept and that anyone who doesn't believe in magical sex transformations is our friend, no matter how patriarchal they are.

[–]akkordeonplayer 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Anybody with a weird fetish seems to call themselves this, too.