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Sprinting Towards Sodom
OK, that is a deliberately provocative title. But there’s a new Gallup poll about LGBT self-identification in the US and the results are alarming for a traditionalist like myself, with an unexpected twist. The title of this post is intended as a homage to Robert Bork’s terrific Slouching Towards Gomorrah, published in 1996. I highly recommend the book, which is available online free (here), though I can’t vouch for the copyright legitimacy of this version. I have it in my Audible library.
Onto the data and graphics. The latest Gallup poll, released this week but reporting polling data from 2020 (here), reports an increase in LGBT self-identification to 5.6%. The prior reported figure, from 2017 (here), was 4.5%. That’s an increase of about 24% since 2017. Here’s how it breaks down by age cohort:
The red line shows the 2020 Gallup data. As you can see, it follows a “hockey stick” pattern, with a substantial and accelerating increase in overall LGBT self-identification among the younger age cohorts.
The orange and blue lines show the same results for 2017 and 2012, respectively. Interestingly, LGBT identification has declined a bit in the older cohorts, shows a slight increase in Gen X, and shows large increases in the younger two age cohorts. There are no results reported for Gen Z prior to 2020, as they were not yet adults.
Note that Gallup has slightly tweaked the cutoff points for some of the age cohorts. A person born in 1980 was considered a Gen X-er in 2017, but is now classified as a Millennial. A person born in 1997-1999 was considered a Millennial in 2017, but is now classified in Gen Z. I don’t think that these minor changes have a significant effect on the results.
In a post in October 2019 (here), I did a more detailed analysis of LGBT self-identification by age, based on smaller age cohorts (five-year intervals). The data fit a cubic function quite well. Here is the graph from my 2019 post, based on data from 2017:
This model indicated a prevalence of LGBT identification that was rapidly increasing, and was around 12% for 18-year-olds — meaning people who were 18 years old in 2017. This is quite consistent with the latest Gallup data from 2020, showing that 15.9% of Americans in Gen Z — aged 18-23 in 2020 — self-identify as LGBT.
So the recent Gallup data confirms my prior conclusions. It is quite inconsistent with the arguments that LGBT individuals are “born that way” or that these characteristics are “immutable.”
The 2020 Gallup data, however, includes a helpful breakdown of the subcategories of LGBT identification, reporting self-identification for five subcategories: bisexual; gay (i.e. male homosexual); lesbian (i.e. female homosexual); transgender; and “other” (whatever that might mean). Here is a graph of this breakdown in 2020:
As you can see, the bulk of the increase occurs in the bisexual category (red line), with a notable increase in the transgender category (blue line).
The most consistent subcategory across generations is male homosexuality (orange line), which shows a small increase in the younger age cohorts. Note that the number of male homosexuals in the older age cohorts — especially the Boomers — is probably an understatement of the total rate of male homosexuality in these cohorts, as I suspect that AIDS resulted in the early death of a significant number of men in this category.
In percentage terms, the largest increases in LGBT identification between age cohorts are:
- Bisexual identification increased 500% between the Boomers and Gen X
- Bisexual identification increased a further 183% between Gen X and the Millennials, and yet another 125% between the Millennials and Gen Z
- Transgender identification increased 500% between Gen X and the Millennials, and another 50% between the Millennials and Gen Z
- Male homosexual identification increased 67% between Gen X and the Millennials, then increased only 5% further between the Millennials and Gen Z
- Female homosexual identification increased 75% between the Boomers and Gen X, another 14% between Gen X and the Millennials, and another 75% between the Millennials and Gen Z
I find this to be interesting information. The bulk of Americans identifying as LGBT are bisexual. Overall, about 55% of LGBT adults are bisexual. This trend is most pronounced among Gen Z, among which about 67% of LGBT individuals are bisexual.
A final observation is the sex differentials in the bisexual category. The latest Gallup report provides limited information on this, reporting that for the entire population, 4.3% of women and 1.8% of men identify as bisexual. This suggests that about 70% of bisexuals are women. The report does not provide information on sex differences in bisexual identification by age cohort.
I’ll do my best to answer any questions that you might have about this updated information, and I’m interested in your comments about the cultural and policy implications of these demographics.
Wokeism delenda est.
Published in Domestic Policy
That age for the increase, college age, is one for being sexually curious. The more interesting stat would be to ask these same questions to the same people in about 5-10 years and see if their answers aren’t more in line with the older demographic. Plus, what else are they going to say now. It’s cool to be whatever the current term is. Didn’t you want to be cool and fit in at that age? (well, probably not this crowd, but you know what I mean)
There are two issues here that should be talked about.
The first is that the number of Gays and Lesbians has remained mostly flat with small increases, but not massive ones once one hits Gen X and then Millennials as an example. The number of self-identifying Gays opens up with the Boomers going to 1.2% from 0.3% in prior generations. After that jump the increases are much smaller with 1.2% Gen Xers, a modest 2.0% of Millennials, and 2.1% in Gen Z. We see a similar rate of self-identifications of Lesbianism with the largest jump also happening with the Boomers doubling to 0.4% and almost doubling to Gen Xers at 0.7%. In fact there is a belief that many “butch” women are now identifying as Trans because of the big push for Trans identification and rights.
The other issue has to do with the rise of bi-sexuality as an acceptable preference. The oddity to me is that humans aren’t really heterosexual, homosexual, or bi-sexual (let’s leave out the dozen other names for now), but rather sexual. History, Anthropology, and Archeology pretty much show us that humans tend to want to have intercourse with anyone (and sometimes anything). Male bisexuality was the norm in many classical cultures and only homosexuality was seen as deviant. In England sodomy wasn’t illegal until the Buggery Act of 1533, when it became punishable by death (that penalty was removed in 1861). That was limited to sodomy or buggery. In 1885 all male homosexual acts became illegal in England. Lesbian acts were never made illegal with the idea that they didn’t want to give women the idea that they could even do that. Paleolithic cultures were often societies with multiple wives for each man. In part because hunting was dangerous and many men died and many cultures had a system where the relatives would take on their brother’s wives if they died, and low population, high infant mortality, and a lack of medicine were other factors. The problem with most of this historical analysis is that its almost all from a male point of view. For many classical and paleolithic cultures women were hardly mentioned at all, so any activities that they might have engaged in outside of sex with their husbands is little known (with a few exceptions such as the poet Sappho). However, the prevailing thought is that both men and women engaged in same-sex relationships if only to reduce the number of children being conceived. The final takeaway is that throughout history, humans appear to have had sex as often as possible and devised ways to have more sex and avoid pregnancy that usually meant same sex relationships.
So, are our heterosexual feelings a product of the past few hundred years of cultural programming? That seems likely.
I don’t question any of the statistics but what makes it all so truly frightening is the legislation that grows out of those statistics such as the “Equality Act” that was passed by the House yesterday. True to form, Pelosi stated that “Passing the Equality Act the last time was historic, a day of hope and happiness for millions (?). Now with a Democratic Senate majority and President Biden in the White House, and Vice President Harris there as well, we will pass it once more and we will never stop fighting until it becomes law.”
So, with Trump, and that pesky Senate majority out of the way, we are, indeed, “sprinting towards Sodom”. Along with the above legislation, the Biden administration has dropped the lawsuit that Trump’s DOJ filed against the State of Connecticut barring biological males from competing against female athletes.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/high-school-girl-athlete-blasts-biden-administration-for-abandoning-her-lawsuit
Of course, this also means that there is nothing to bar these biological males from using the shower room at the same time the female athletes are there. So, how long will it be before these biological males begin “accidently” brushing up against the female athletes?
So, pardon me while I go full-R. Lee Ermey on those Dimocrats and Republicrats who are responsible for Biden being in the White House and the Dims having a Senate majority:
“Just what the h*ll is your major malfunction?”
Yep, peer pressure, exacerbated by social media.
And porn.
I don’t think that this is correct.
As far as I know, prohibitions on homosexuality began with the Law of Moses, circa 1500 BC. Such prohibitions continued in Christianity. So we’re talking about 2,000-3,500 years, not a few hundred.
As a practical matter, I think that the prohibition spread with the expansion of Christianity. The Jews didn’t really take over and rule anywhere outside the Holy Land, so while their adoption of this rule was important historically, the Jews — meaning the non-Christian Jews — don’t seem responsible for the spread of this particular form of sexual morality.
The suit was filed by the parents on behalf of the girls:
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ctd.137997/gov.uscourts.ctd.137997.1.0_1_1.pdf
The Department of Education filed a statement of interest in support of plaintiffs:
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ctd.137997/gov.uscourts.ctd.137997.75.0.pdf
Biden withdrew that. The case goes on with a hearing on the motion to dismiss having been held today.
I have always said that we’re not in a handbasket to h__l, but we’re on a bullet train to h__l.
I seem to recall a survey a few years ago in which younger people thought that 25 – 45 % of the general population was LGBT. This greatly erroneous perception seemed to be based on their media consumption, since media present such percentages as “normal.”
I have noticed that the Wall Street Journal makes an effort to include one or more homosexual couples in their articles about issues ranging from home decor to taxes to coping with COVID restrictions. If people go by that, no wonder they might think that homosexuals make up 25% of the population. Last weekend’s Review section contained a column called “Five Best” where an author is invited to list their personal best books on a particular topic. The topic was “books about lesbian authors”, which just made me turn the page in disgust.
If you watch any shows on TV like HGTV this has been going on for at least 10 years. You would think half the population was gay or lesbian. Even good ole Wheel of Fortune has a gay contestant at least every two weeks.
From sci-fi shows these days you’d think the percentage of gays is somewhere between 5 and 20% of the population. And the percentage of monogamous heterosexuals maybe 10% or so.
Mrs.
FInteresting used to get maybe a dozen mags like Beach Cottage or Mountain Cottage Living, or Suburban Cottage Cheeses, or some such. Yesterday she pointed out that every magazine has at least one article on gay men rehabbing the house of their dreams (on an unlimited budget, it seems). And she has not been renewing her subscriptions for a while and now is down to one left.What has the magazine industry done to itself?
The poll asked about ‘identifying as’ rather than ‘who people have sex with’. So it’s about social behaviour and beliefs about what is okay/not okay rather than just sexual behaviour.
My hunch is the proportion of men who have sex with men hasn’t varied that much between age cohorts, what’s different is how honest they feel they can be about it.
Lesbians – I have no idea.
It occurs to me that identifying as bi-sexual on a questionnaire doesn’t require anything but imagination – you don’t have to have had both hetero and gay sex to check a box, and why limit future options?
Also the majority of bi- people have a marked preference one way or the other. Certainly for life-mate purposes (sex is cool and all, even vital to society, but it doesn’t hold everything together).
I suspect there is more experimentation (among women particularly), but that anyone who has experimented is far more likely to consider themselves ‘bi-‘ rather than ‘hetero except for that one time’.
Yep. My Trailer Life/RV magazine underwent a redesign and we noticed the same thing. It just seems so forced. Believe me, there are plenty of lesbian RVers. You don’t have to search them out. Let the stories happen naturally.
I see a lot of college age kids in my practice. The number of them that take serious psychotropic drugs is staggering.
Huge numbers are diagnosed with anxiety and/ or depression, along with ADHD and bipolar disorder.
Something is very wrong in the way we are raising our children.
but but mean Tweets!
It’s the flavor of the month among the young. Plus it gives them leverage in the intersectionality pyramid game.
Being a boring straight, white, Christian puts you on the bottom floor.
Have you been in a bookstore lately? Go look at the magazine isle – the “new” magazines and the covers are appalling – covering every perversion you can think of. Two men redecorating a property is nothing – Country Living had been doing that for decades – maybe because they’re good at it :-)
I disagree – it’s the same. There have always been gays and no one had a questionnaire because no one cared. What you identify as has to do with your sexuality – what else would be be about? The new difference is the 75+ nutty versions of how you can identify may be changing our language and social behavior – and it’s absurdity.
Are you on drugs?
Most of society cared, hence laws against sodomy.
no – I don’t use drugs – I was talking about modern society.
Okay, sorry for my tone, they was uncalled for. I apologise.
But if nobody cared today, forget the acres of writing on SSM here on Ricochet not so long ago, why would Jerry write this piece and why would anybody (including you and me) respond?
”Nobody cared” is re-writing history. And possibly whitewashing the present?
Okay, prediction: “boring, straight, white, Christian” will be a (niche) gay male kink within a year.
Speaking for myself, caffeine, as usual.
The Boomer to Gen X increase in bisexual identity makes sense, as does the transsexual increase with Millenials and Gen Z. Both were “cool,” socially “hip” postures for young people. Think David Bowie’s peak stardom for Gen X, with his Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke personas. I would have thought, however, that “trans” is the new “bi.”
It’s the food industry switching to soy oil in mayonnaise. Plays heck with the bodily essences.
On Wheel of Fortune, how would anyone know if someone is gay?
Are introductions now, “Hi, I’m gay and my name is…”
The problem seems to me be more an issue of boundaries about what is private and what is public, and gossip, whispering and malice to use information to destroy someone you don’t like, or disagree with.
Why?
To be honest my first reaction was “if you replace lesbian with Jewish” that would strike most people as an awful thing to say, how is this different? But maybe I’m missing something?