Being old, I recall in the 1990s the number of Americans identifying as homosexual or bisexual was published as either 7% or 8% of the population. I was involved in the arts, where our group estimate was, with a lot of people were still closetted, the real percentage would be closer to 12% to 15%. Reading this and considering the way the US has gone since then, I think we were probably right, and I'd even go so far as to say perhaps a little low.
Right? I remember a couple decades ago when things just started opening up for lgbtq people that scientists studying sexuality gave estimates that 1:10 people were likely not going to fit the hetero “norm”.
The thing that always amazes me about those that oppose LGBT is that LGBT is literally about the freedom to love egoevrt you want to love, including loving yourself how you are.
Those that hate LGBT just can't stop talking about hate and spite.
I think in some/most cases it is psychological projection, and in others it’s fear of the unknown. People either are secretly LGBT and hate themselves, or their brains just can’t comprehend the fact that some people are attracted to other genders.
It's projection that they think relationships are only about sex because their hetero relationships are only about sex and devoid of the spiritual and emotional connections that SHOULD exist in a relationship
And tens of millions of americans just didn't care enough to vote. That was basically saying they are fine with a pedo-rapist who previously attack the captitol win the election. Nazi-enablers.
I just saw someone right here on Lemmy in another thread conflating sexuality with sex.
It astounds me that in 2025 people don't understand that sexuality is about attraction. You can be a virgin. You can be asexual and still attracted to people of your own gender. You can be gay or bi or whatever regardless of how much or how little sex you've ever had.
Because a lot of the traditional hetero relationships that Christians have are only different from their other relationships because of the sex. They don't get an emotional and spiritual connection in their relationship, and protect on to others that it's the same.
I could have sworn I read somewhere that it's likely 10% anyway, like 20 years ago. That was the scientific estimate of the time, although I don't though it included the same definition.
That was an estimate. Around that time only about 2-4% identified as gay but it was estimated the real number was higher because homophobia kept most people in the closet.
Yes that's what I meant by likely. I think it was slightly more than a guess, though. Something about a percentage of people not having kids being good for evolution or something. Not sure how that works, though, so don't that my word on that.
i vaguely remember a health teacher in jr or sr high saying something like that (this would be back in the '80s).. "about 10 percent, that's the same as at least three of your classmates.." (in that class)....
and then the students kinda all looked around, eyeballin' everybody.. as if they were counting.. yup. checks out. one of them blurted out "that's kinda low, don'cha think?" --this bit is why i remember the class. and she was right. it was low.
I agree. It's really hard to count since so many people love in denial. Bisexual is particularly hard to count, and there's plenty of women who fancy the idea given just how awful men are sometimes.
Edit but not really, but I like "love in denial". Happy typo I'm keeping.
Who could have guessed a significant portion of the population wouldn't magically find their attraction to people exclusively split along a very specific line of biological and social characteristics in over 99% of cases? What a shocking revelation that maybe a lot of people just like who they like regardless of gender or sex.
Personally, I expect to see this number of people outwardly identifying as bi significantly rise as time goes on.
No, but I remember seeing another recent poll about a year ago where the results were that about 20% of GenZ identify as LGBTQ.
This would imply that 10% is the acceptance rate (which has gone up "thanks to GenZ's contribution") and the actual rate is higher than this, but that part is missing from the information.