4 ms·
The 30% figures others have mentioned seem high to me (as in, impossibly so). I left the US in 2005. My gay friends and many in the gay community in S.F. estim
by mikedilger 7y ago
The 30% figures others have mentioned seem high to me (as in, impossibly so).
I left the US in 2005. My gay friends and many in the gay community in S.F. estimated amongst themselves at the time that about 10% of people were gay or lesbian, while the general public estimates were more like 4%. They estimated higher because they knew people who were not out of the closet. But even the gay community didn't think it so high as 30%.
I gather that there is some kind of virtue signal "brownie points" thing going on in the US now (from what I read, I'm not there and perhaps I've been mislead, If I'm wrong I'm wrong, no offense intended) which makes people behave in ways designed to signal virtue to each other for social brownie points, and perhaps this is what is contributing to these high estimations. This new social norm disproportionally affects younger people and women.
- dagw 7y agoThe debate is really down to who 'counts' as gay. Kinsey (who really pioneered this work), for example, included everybody who had ever had a consensual same sex sexual encounter or who regularly had same sex fantasies, no matter how they self identified.