Gallup study: 3.4 percent of US adults are LGBT

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 1:35pm

Or, more accurately, identify as such:

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g9uzsHuU8SZ9VVGBE-8iQ8ysroPA?docId=a77ff6fb048049c68592046dc5e2b731

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 2:31pm

Right but after you add in the percentage of men over 40 who identify as Republican, that number goes up to 29.6%

[tazber]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 3:09pm

Ridiculous.

I'm not one of those people who think everyone's gay, but come on.

Something is either wrong with their sample size or they need a better statistician because there is no way that's accurate.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 3:15pm

Do you think it's lower or higher, taz? I know that for the longest time people used to repeat that it was 10% but I thought in recent years, studies have shown the percentage was lower.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 3:17pm

Given Gallup's recent polls on everything, wouldn't surprise me if this was a wildly inaccurate figure. I thought somebody telling me it was 5% a year ago thinking that was incredibly low.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 3:43pm

I always heard the number was 8%

[tazber]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:00pm

I meant the number should be higher, Phyl.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:01pm

"You're a little high, Harry."

[tazber]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:03pm

Well, yes I am. But that has nothing to do with that percentage being wrong.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:06pm

Of course if you ask people about their sexuality they will not be honest. If Gallup poll asked men their dick sizes you would see 98% of the US had 8" or more.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:07pm

Ha!

I think the number probably is higher, simply because the key to this is that that the people self-identify as LGBT. How much higher, though, I have no idea.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:13pm

That's the thing, Phyl. If the poll results are accurate, I have a really, really hard time believing a truer estimate would be double this number.

30%-35% higher, maybe -- and that's a big maybe -- but I don't see any way it hits 8% overall, again, if this is near accurate.


EDIT: In any event, I found it very surprising.

Updated On: 10/19/12 at 04:13 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:20pm

Yeah, I'd venture that it wouldn't be much higher. It's interesting to note, though, that more younger people identified as LGBT than older.


A similar pattern was found regarding income groups. More than 5 percent of those with annual incomes of less than $24,000 identify as LGBT, compared to 2.8 percent of those making more than $60,000 a year.

Among those who report income, about 16 percent of LGBT individuals have incomes above $90,000 per year, compared with 21 percent of the overall adult population, the Gallup survey found. It said 35 percent of those who identify as LGBT report incomes of less than $24,000 a year, compared to 24 percent for the population in general.

Something to consider when repeating the old "gay people make more money" canard.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:40pm

As Strummer said, Gallup has a terrible rep right now for their numbers being understated.

I believe it must be higher--just looking at my own experiences in university classes, etc. (of course my history with classes is taking classes mainly related to the arts, lit, etc, and some would say that skews it). I hate the belief of some gay people I know that nearly everyone is at least slightly gay, but 3.4 seems awfully low.

But as others have said, there are issues here--the term "identify as" being one. I suspect, as Phyllis said, if you did the poll in twenty years it would be higher, just because it's more acceptable with younger generations (and that could give fodder to certain groups claiming that recent laws and things like having gays on tv are converting America's youth...)

[dreaming]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:55pm

The other thing is the "B" here-bisexual. Lots of adults identify themselves somewhere on the bisexual scale. I'd guess that would make it higher.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 4:58pm

The Kinsey findings (is that where the 10% theory comes from? I can't remember the numbers) were based on men specifically, and men who had had homosexual encounters at some time in their post puberty lives. In that case I'd guess that nowadays the number would be significantly higher than 10%

[latitudex1]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:16pm

Hmm, the actual number is likely closer to the 6.4% 18-24s reported then the 3.4% overall. It's very dangerous for the AP to report this as the absolute amount of gays, bis, lesbians, or transgenders in the country as opposed to the people who report themselves as such.

Of course, NYC has the most gay people in the country and the theatre is largely gay, so our views may be skewed.

[Kad]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 6:56pm

All I could think after I saw this was that this is not a good thing. All I can envision is people saying "Why should we care about 3% of the population?"

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 7:10pm

Was this a phone study? Because most gay people I know don't answer their phones.

[Playbilly]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 8:10pm

Could be true. There are a looooooooooot of places in the US that are poorly decorated.

[canmark]

Posted: 10/19/12 at 10:48pm

I think that there is probably some truth to this study, as it was "based on interviews with more than 121,000 people," and presumably with some scientific credibility.

However, there are probably some factors that suggest that the results may be skewed. Asking if someone is gay, or identifies with the LGBT community is not like asking someone if they are left- or right-handed. It's a bit like the way many young women don't identify themselves as "feminists," despite the fact that they may believe in gender equality (which should equate with "feminist"). It's hard to get the whole truth because the very word itself (gay or LGBT) is so fraught with prejudice (and shame). Would a closeted gay person or a man married to a woman (who has sex with men) answer a phone survey (with their wife at home) as gay or LGBT? The results are only as accurate as the answers they receive.

- Also, people identifying as LGBT (or part of the LGBT community) is not the same as being LGBT (hence the term Men who have sex with Men, which often identifies those who do not consider themselves gay or part of the LGBT community, but are still going downtown), or having had a same-sex sexual experience (and, of course, somebody can be gay without even having had sex ie. one can be a gay virgin just like one can be a straight virgin). All of those people should count as LGBT, but only some of them will put up their hands and be counted.

- That the percentage of people who acknowledged being gay varied by age may indicate that younger people are more willing to admit to being LGBT (as there is no reason to believe that people born 50 years ago were any more/less gay than people born 25 years ago. Also, it's interesting that they found a *higher* percentage of LGBT people in minority groups ("4.6 percent of African-Americans identify as LGBT, 4 percent of Hispanics, 4.3 percent of Asians and 3.2 percent of whites"), despite the fact that minority groups are often seen as being more traditional and less gay-friendly. The study revealed that "Overall, a third of those identifying as LGBT are nonwhite," yet these gay people of color are seldom seen in media which seems fixated on rich gay white males.

- It's interesting that that study found that "among 18-to-29-year-olds, 8.3 percent of women identify as LGBT, compared with 4.6 percent of men the same age." I would think that most people would be surprised to know that there were twice as many lesbians as gay men... or is this just an indication that women are more willing to admit to LGBT status than men?

- Even if the rate is 3 or 4 or 5%, that's still not such a small thing. 5% is 1 in 20 people. That's a lot. 4.8% of the US population is Asian, and like the LGBT community, Asians are more likely to be found in large cities and in states on the East or West coasts. Look at San Francisco: lots of Asians and lots of gays. We go together.

- I'm glad that the survey debunks the notion that gay people are all rich. Just as women earn less than men, gay people earn less than straight people.

Updated On: 10/19/12 at 10:48 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 12:17am

When somebody finally took on the myth of the 10% (created by the same Advocate ad sheet bullet point makers along with the myth of gays, by which they meant men, are all highly educated, never have children, have tons of disposable income and take lots of high end vacations every year... ALL of them), they came up with the much closer to the truth 1-2% of the population. Which is still a lot of people.

I'm surprised Gallup got a higher number and I am surprised that the oft-repeated truism that people of color don't identify as gay as much as white people kind of turns everything on its head.

There was once going to be a federal sex survey, back at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. It was stopped by the ever-delicate Jesse Helms.

[bethnor]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 1:01am

even if it's 1%, that doesn't mean you deserve fewer rights under the law.

dishonesty also runs multiple ways. there are many reasons for people to lie. those who are married to a spouse of the opposite sex have a vested reason to lie. there are also people who are as gay as could be, who couldn't be more gay, like michelle bachmann's husband, who probably honestly and completely believe they're heterosexual.

also, the survey probably doesn't allow for the complexities of human sexuality. sorry for again pointing this out, but judeo-christian values have left a gigantic, ragged, thorny stick up society's ass about sex. even people who are intimate with one another can have difficulty discussing their sexual feelings for one another. we are completely unable to discuss it honestly as a society without blushing. there are probably very many homo and heterosexuals who do not completely identify as 100% one or the other. if you are 95% homosexual and 5% heterosexual, do you identify yourself as bi or homosexual? is bisexual 50% one 50% the other, or does it allow for 60% and 40%?

the reason for this is again, very simple, in my view. the sexual impulse is just so strong that it overrides everything so it makes "mistakes." anyone who's had a dog which has humped your leg has to know this (no one surveys dogs for being "leg-o-sexual," or "lamp post-o-sexual"). probably there is a majority that is a 100% hetersexual, a minority that is 100% homosexual, and a huge variance in between. an honest inquiry into the topic without blushing could yield so much liberating information that would lift a huge veil of needless doubt and guilt. alas.

Updated On: 10/20/12 at 01:01 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 1:04am

Well, you see, that survey Helms stopped asked not only how you identified but also if in your life you have had sex with men, women or both. Helms didn't stop it because he thought it was too explicit, though that's what he said, it was because he was afraid of real numbers in those categories.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 10/20/12 at 1:13am

In San Francisco, the statistics are something like this:
Three out of ten homeless youth identify as LGBT.

That's huge.