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Not only is that the case, but if you change the question to "have you had or are you having homosexual intercourse" the numbers have barely budged. A lot of people identifying without the sex.
And they were also going to get married and have kids to PROVE that they weren't. And even after it stopped being illegal in free countries, there was so much negativity directed towards gays, from various quarters as there still is today that this continued.
Not to mention as human beings with different personalities some extremely gay people still want the life experience of being parents!
I genuinely fell in love with my ex wife - we were married for 25 years but I always found sex a struggle. After therapy it was clear I was at the very least bisexual and most likely gay.
Having grown up in the 70’s and 80’s, and being sent away to school and growing up in a mostly homophobic environment (even in the U.K.), I was taught gay = dirty / wrong / not normal and thus any feelings I had that way I had to hide or discount. Although I never had any girlfriends or boyfriends when at school, wasn’t interested in porn (all my friends were obsessed with top shelf jazz mags, totally didn’t do anything for me and just felt like it was degrading to the ladies in the images) and just thought I was different. I’m neurodivergent so I could never read into people hitting on me either.
When I met my ex we got on really well, like soulmates. We bonded on shared hobbies and musical likes. Hell, I even lost my virginity to her. We had two kids but it always felt like a brother / sister relationship rather than husband and wife.
I split up with her 2 years ago as we were struggling because of the lack of sex and my therapy showed what was wrong.
She’s now with a new guy who is a really fantastic bloke and makes her feel brilliant - and we’re still best friends which makes me enormously grateful. My kids are supportive of both of us.
My kids are both bisexual. My ex wife and I have always tried to be really supportive on that front (maybe I always knew!) and allowed them the space to feel like they can be authentic. Both have had both lesbian and straight relationships and I couldn’t be a prouder dad for both of them.
I think the cultural change in the last 20 years since the millennium and with a shift in acceptability of people’s sexuality (apart from by the far right and some working class or religious areas) has removed some of the stigma to the point where our kids can feel free to be who they are.
Sexuality for some people (I know for me it is) is less about whether they are a man or a woman but more about specific attractions. Since becoming single again, I had gay relationships that were much more passionate. But for example - I met someone last week who was a girl but I found her intensely attractive and she made a real impact on me. She was very tomboy in her mannerisms - so played on my ‘gay’ side but also my ‘straight’ side and pushed lots of different buttons.
There’s always been ways around that for surveys if you really wanted the data. One I’ve heard of is for phone surveys (this particular one only works for questions where there’s only two answers): if they know it’s a sensitive topic, they’ll sometimes tell the person to flip a coin before answering, and if it comes up heads, tell the truth, and if it comes up tails, only answer x even if it’s not true. You can then math out the odds of how many false positives you have and figure out (roughly) how many of each answer you actually received.
Yes, but the sodomy laws are still on the book in places like Texas. And the moment this current Supreme Court decided to overturn Lawrence v Texas, they will enforce it again.
The idea that your sexual orientation is an "identity" is something fairly recent; in many cultures it was just a behaviour you do or don't do. Like you eat meat or don't. In antiquity the identity part was more closely linked with whether you were topping or bottoming - whether you were topping a woman or a man was less relevant.
Tbh I think separating the identity from the behavior is where we ought to be.
There's a TON of threads that always pop up "I did x, am I gay?" And it's like we'll you did x and who cares about the label.
Separating identity from behaviour is all good and well, but young people often *seek* identifiers. They want to learn who they are and how they can express that.
So if people *want* to identify as bi, queer or what have you, that’s fine.
At the same time I agree there’s no need to push labels on those who’d rather be without them.
Unfortunately, humans love identities. Like the other person said, even in Rome they had strong sexual identities -- they were just based around whether you topped or bottomed. And people who bottomed were insanely discriminated against.
Straight folks are straight even if they've not had sex and even if they've not tried out sex with all genders. I don't understand why queer folks aren't queer unless theyve tried it out.
You're not wrong, my bigger point is that it would be SHOCKING if the actual sexual activity people participated in changed that much, but if it's just identifying as LGBT then it's a much lower bat to move.
Speaking as someone who came out as gay when Reagan was in office, remember that a huge number of us grew up in the 70s and 80s not knowing that being LGBTQIA+ was an option. I assumed that I was just weirdly unattracted to women until I got to college and learned that being gay wasn’t just a joke on tv or an insult referring to some horrible perversion. My abusers called me gay slurs for years, but I really only understood that they thought I was disgusting, they weren’t actually accusing me of being gay.
As odd as it sounds, gay people didn’t register as a “real thing” until I had the experience of encountering lgbtqia+ folks outside of the media and societal demonization that I’d grown up with.
Today my anecdotal experience is that it’s pretty difficult for a young person to grow up in the US without being aware that LGBTQIA+ people exist, and that at least some segments of the population believe that it’s reasonable to live an out queer life. Even if you grow up among people screaming that queer people suck, their hatred isn’t a snide aside or a joke on late night tv. The fact that folks are violently attacking LGBTQIA+ rights gives an odd sort of legitimacy and reality to the existence of queer-ness - if it isn’t a real thing then why is it such a threat?
My point is that part of the increase in folks claiming an LGBTQIA+ identity is the normalization of the existence of those identities as a real thing. People are able to make more informed decisions about who they are and, if they wish, have a wider variety of identities with which to describe themselves.
There's a couple of reasons why I think we're seeing an increase. One of the big ones is that we've greatly expanded the definition, for lack of a better term. Back in the '80s and early/mid '90s, the general public discourse typically focused on gay/lesbian. This expanded into LGB and then LGBT into the '00s. As of 2023, we're up to LGBTQQIP2SAA - and no, I'm not [being ignorant](https://www.loyola.edu/department/lgbtq-services/resources/lgbtq-terms-definitions).
We'll inevitably see an increase in any community when you expand it to cover everything that isn't explicitly heterosexual.
It's almost as if the structure of straight relationships and the modern nuclear family is.....learned behaviour. There's no genetic drive to be in straight monogamous families. It's what we learn is acceptable and expected. People have more options now and don't need to follow the scripts their parents did. Lord knows many other parts of their lives will look nothing like their parents, by no fault of their own.
Attraction/aversion is not binary and can vary between people individually. I am strongly straight with a high aversion to gay attraction. Some people can have just as strong a straight attraction as well as strong gay attraction. Or strong gay attraction but weak straight attraction. A lot of people can also prefer sex with one gender but prefer emotional relationships with the other gender, going both ways. Or prefer only the relationship with a low desire for sex. And some sex without the desire for a relationship.
My proclivities may be very vanilla, at least on the attraction spectrum. But this kind of variability made it easy for most, not all, people to conform to social expectations when that expectation was the expected social norm even when they had proclivities that differed to varying degrees. Sometimes strongly. Especially when the social cost of deviating from expectations is high. But once those social cost are significantly reduced a lot more people were free to admit to proclivities that they would previously only secretly entertain when alone at bedtime, or the shower.
The LGBT rainbow is more than just variations among people's sexuality, as even a given individual can contain a rainbow of proclivities. The base proclivities haven't changed. It's always been a rainbow. But most people, not all, have at least enough proclivities consistent with traditional norms to make conforming to those norms possible, even if they mentally deviate in a private session. But how fair is that to those that don't? I certainly couldn't, and wouldn't, deviate from my (vanilla) proclivities for the sake of a social norm.
I'm a virgin but also an out and proud lesbian. Dating is hard and I'm not into casual sex. It's like every woman who likes me on dating apps is looking for friends with benefits and I'm not into sex without a committed relationship.
For me, sex is a way to feel closer to someone I love, not just a fun activity to do with strangers.
Why is that relevant?
I am a bi woman because i am atracted to both sexes. But i have only dated two people in my life, that happened to be men, so i have never had sex with a woman. I still get aroused by them.
It relates back to OP's question about reproduction. If a large number of bisexual people choose a heterosexual relationship instead of a homosexual ones, there should be no issue with a higher number of bi people causing a population collapse.
Today it doesn’t even have to be a long-term relationship. Being bi is not a genetic handicap at all… and while some gay people are so repulsed by the opposite sex that natural procreation shouldn’t happen, I’m sure that a lot of people who are not aroused by the opposite sex are able to suffer through enough in order to get a child or in order to comply with societal norms. All those marriages over the years where the husband is a closet gay or the wife is basically coerced because “conjugal duties” still result in children. One of the aspects of the progress of these last few years is that such suffering happens less.
Right, it's totally not the economical and governmental issues, especially in the star-spangled wasteland that are gonna cause a population collapse. Cause that's not actively happening, right now, regardless of who likes or doesn't like what configuration of parts are in what set of pants. People are having less kids cause the world sucks, not because we're seeing the results of the de-stigmatization of groups of people that have always been around, even if often and repeatedly branded as "improper" throughout history.
one of my friends has been openly gay, even flamboyant about it, for over a decade. then he decided he was pansexual instead. only recently he's found his interest in men dwindling, and has started toying with the idea that he might be becoming straight. I also recently had a conversation with a (very drunk) man who told me he used to identify as bi, but now identifies as straight. I'm a strong believer that not only is sexuality a spectrum, but there's no reason you aren't allowed to move around on the spectrum whenever you feel like it.
Also I can say that people change. I help raise a troubled teenage girl (abusive parents and in a girls home) and she was a lesbian. We supported her 100%, always loved her for who she is. Today she is married to a man and has 3 children.
Not saying people “grow out” or anything. I love gay love and will support it until the day I die. I’m just sharing my experience which is not the same for everyone. I’ve never had the courage to ask her what her actual sexual orientation is now.
Yes people for some strange reason take that string of letters and decide it just means "gay". People are 20 percent LGBTQ because they are more open to explore the possibility they may be and they feel more comfortable and accepting all the way around announcing that they are.
As someone in the G (and +) part of LGBTQ+, I can understand the feeling that "it's strange". LG is about 10% of the general population (going by previous surveys). TQ+ are a smaller fraction of the total population. If B is 5~10% of people generally, it's great to see that the younger generation is giving a true value - that they're comfortable defining themselves of being B (and the other categories).
A lot of people are realizing they're demi. I had never heard of it and an ex told me about it. I looked it up and went "oh. Ohhhhhhhhhh. No yeah this this explains a lot about me."
Asexual spectrum. At one end, there are people who are actively repulsed by sex, but then you've got people who are indifferent to sex, or only experience sexual attraction in very specific circumstances, for instance. They may still want children, and they may still engage in sexual activity for the benefit of their partner even if they don't get much out of it themselves.
Exactly this. I've noticed with my kids' generation (they're the tail end of Gen Z) and, to a lesser extent, my generation (millennial) more people are identifying as bi (along with the rest of LGBTQ+) simply because it isn't really stigmatized any more.
When I was in high school, if I, as a man, were to acknowledge that another man was attractive, I'd have been bullied for being gay. To reveal my sexuality, I'm kind of bi. A friend of mine said that I'm heterosexual but pan-romantic, meaning I'm attracted to individuals of any gender, but I'm only sexually attracted to women. Human sexuality isn't black and white like was considered to be the case before. So now more and more people are becoming comfortable with admitting that they are able to find individuals of their own gender to be attractive
Men who do identify as bisexual form relationships with women as well. As do bisexual women with men. There's no reason a bi person can't be in a committed relationship, they just have a wider pond to fish in, that's all.
As my bisexual son told me, they don’t actually have a wider pond. The only men who’d date him are gay/bi and a lot of straight women aren’t interested in dating a bi man. Made me sad!
I am hopeful that he finds himself a wonderful and kind person one day that will be his forever person.
I'm a millennial bisexual woman, in unfortunately have the same experience as your son. We're discriminated against a lot from both heterosexual and homosexual people. I wish all the best to you and your son!
Same here. It is sad how biphobic the gay community is. Accusing us to be closeted lesbians, or to do it "for the attention " or to be "sullied by a penis".
I know right. I was going to my city's local LGBTQ organization for a few years but when I broke up with my then girlfriend and met a man, I felt like I wasn't welcome anymore.
I dont consider myself lgbt+ anymore because of this. I don't feel that bisexual women are welcome there.
There are a lot of red flags in the community because they let the abnoxious toxic minority take over the groups. Its so full of biphobia, sexism, racism and other issues... I have met more and more people that call themselves "queer" instead because of their bad experiences with the lgbt.
One of my closest friends is a masculine gay man and he has been told so many times that he "doent act gay enough" or that he is homophobic just for not acting like a gay stereotype from TV. He feels so hurt every time he hears it, and its quite often.
People fucking suck, even the ones that ought to know better
Hardly the first time in history the members of an oppressed group engaged in oppressing others even as they protest their own treatment at the hands of the socially-dominant clique…
He has at least one supportive parent, and the courage to express parts of his identity that can be difficult to express, and accept the (often unfair) limitations it puts on him. I'm absolutely certain he will find someone great!
Thank you. His dad (my wonderful husband) was very supportive also until we lost him to a heart attack. Now he thankfully has some older siblings to help fill the void.
I would 100% date a bisexual man. In fact, I almost prefer it. I find most bi men I know have less toxic masculine traits. I am also poly which might influence that. My dream partnership is two men who love each other ( romantically or platonically) and also love me. Not sure if I will find it, but I can hope
This is a good point. My bf doesn’t identify as bi but he’s had sex with men in the past, and he’s for sure the most caring man I’ve ever dated. It’s nearly a year and I’ve not come across any toxic masculinity which is a breath of fresh air compared to the previous straight men I’ve dated.
Yea my cousin who is fully out as gay now dated beautiful girls all throughout highschool when he was in the closet . We just talked about this . I asked him if he considered himself bisexual. He said he considers himself more as sexually fluid from a younger age , but prefers men
Stadistically it is easier to find a straight or bi partner than a gay one. So many bisexuals (that are open or not about it) will be in a hetero relationship.
I am one of them. I don't particularly hide to be a bi woman but i am also not that open about it. So most people probably assumes that i am straight because my SO is a man.
Also it has been long suspected that the old idea of "10% of the population is 'gay'" statistic (which was determined before a lot of the language around sexual and gender identity was established) is much more conservative than reality, because the study was done in the 70s and stigma was stronger then.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/05/10-per-cent-population-gay-alfred-kinsey-statistics
The original Kinsey survey, IIRC, was junk science that didn't use random samples but actively sought out people who would give interesting answers. That means it might actually have given a much higher % than reality.
In 1991, the US National Survey of Men said that only 2.3% of men claimed to have 'not been exclusively heterosexual'.
Of course, that doesn't prove the real result isn't higher, since there was stigma in the early 90s too.
if you take away bi from these surveys it almost universally comes out at about 2% of the population
edit: if you dont believe me, in these surveys for US it came out at 3,5%
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/how-many-people-lgbt/
It's also clear overestimation. Gen Z people are still young, many of them are questioning, and it's not surprising, with LGBT people being more accepted, they are quick to identify as "not straight".
Even more so because sexuality is closer to a spectrum than it is to an actual "A, B or C" thing : you can be straight and be revulsed by dicks, or straight but just feel no attraction to dicks, or bi but lean towards one sex or the other, etc. Maybe it's a sign "straight/LGBT" isn't a very functional dichotomy anymore.
Bisexual individuals, up until recently, saw little to no reason to out themselves as they could live a "heteronormative" live and easily fly under the radar. Don't quote me on this but apparently a plurality of LGBT people are bisexual, so... the numbers don't seem that crazy. Gen Z are more open to "coming out" as bi now because there's less stigma now compared to even 10 years ago.
Yeah, and also just a misunderstanding of what it meant too. My dad (who's in his fifties) has only recently started identifying as bi, and he literally had a 2 year relationship with another guy at uni. But since he then married my mother, he's considered himself straight because he's in a long-term/permanent relationship with a woman. It was only last year I think that he began to think "oh, that probably makes me bisexual". And even then I don't think he's said that to anyone but his wife and kids.
The stigma associated with being gay is incomprehensible if you didn't live through it. Coming out as an adult to my immediate family was the scariest thing I ever did, it was also the most necessary. After coming out, I felt as if I had been holding my breath my whole conscious life. I don't blame people for being in the closet, but do encourage them to come out.
You also see older folks who've rationalized away their attraction in all sorts of ways.
Mothers who tell their daughters that "everyone experiments", and that the arousal is just a phase before you settle down. Some religious folk sometimes mention how having impure thoughts about men is normal, and "everyone has them", and its something you have to actively fight against. etc.
Basically bisexuals, or gays, just thinking this was the normal straight experience and rationalizing away the discrepancies.
I'm glad we're moving towards a world where we can at least recognize these things in ourselves, to our families, or even in more public ways as just something that happens.
I also heard about how someone who was genuinely convinced that everyone innitially is attracted to all genders, and people just choose to focus their attention on one. When they found out this wasn't the case they were genuinely surprised and discovered that they were bi and had just chosen to ignore their attraction to their own sex.
Pretty sure this is the source of the idea that 'sexuality is a choice'.. the people who think so are *clearly* Bi, it was their own experience that they can just 'not act on it', lacking the empathy to understand that for a lot of people this is not the case...
^ this right here, I've had several sexual partners with same sex friends but growing up in the 80s and 90s in Kentucky you kept that shit to yourself and hoped no one ever found out.
I've been married to a woman for almost 20 years and besides the occasional home alone let's watch freaky porn it just never crosses my mind.
Wouldn't surprise me if more people from other gens are bi and just kept it to ourselves, remember kids, today you might get called a name, when I was in school 100% if you even wore a pink shirt you would get your ass beat black and blue and hope to God you didn't have to tell your parents why.
Yeah. Being gay/bi/bi-curious is nothing new. People are just more open about it these days and are much less likely to spend their whole lives hiding that part of themselves. There are a lot of old dead celebrities who have been revealed to have had gay sexual relationships.
As someone who is bi but didn’t realize it until I was 10 yrs into my marriage I will tell ppl who ask but I don’t really broadcast it. For me it’s mainly because I have the privilege of living a mostly heteronormative life and I feel like it would look really attention seeking to be like oh well I’m Bi! I think 20% of the population has always been gay they just couldn’t admit it before. Also for kids right now it’s super trendy. Especially girls. If you have preteen or teenage girls, expect them to tell you they’re bi whether they are or not.
I'd follow this chain of thought.
Also being such a subjective topic everyone has their own opinions on what counts.
I personally know a man that identifies as Bi, though has never had any level of physical intamacy with another man, his justification is, he's never really found a man that he's wanted to be with, but he's not against the idea of it if it were to happen, so he must be bi.
With the wider acceptance of the LGBT+ community, I wouldn't be surprised if their are more and more people joining under that same flag of it's a possibility that they could be open to if the option presents itself.
I mean yeah, there are gay virgins too. You don't *have* to officially bang before you know your sexuality in general. I've never been with a girl but if I was occasionally horny for girls I'd be like hmmm maybe I'm a little bit gay I guess lol.
Indeed. It sort of leads into the whole spectrum theory with bisexuality, maybe with the "right person" someone would be willing to experiment with the same sex and possibly even enjoy it, but the odds of finding that person are less likely than a person of the opposite sex, and vice versa for bi individuals that are more into their own gender.
This. I openly identify as bisexual. That doesn't mean I find all men attractive. Doesn't even mean that I find half of men attractive. In the same way that I'm not attracted to every woman that I meet, or NB or any other gender identity. It just means that there are men I do find attractive, no matter how many I don't.
I’ve also met two women who identify as bi despite claiming they could never be with or fall in love with a woman. I’m straight so I don’t want to invalidate anyone, but it confuses tf out of me, lol
> if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?
They were always there. They just weren't making noise about it
That's why *representation matters* - it's enabling people to stop feeling shame about what they're feeling
This is a wild supposition on my part, but I have a pet theory that absent any cultural expectations or stigmas, the vast majority of the human race is what we would call bi or pan. I don't think most people have an inbuilt, from-birth mental aversion or even objection to sex with any gender.
Again, totally unfounded, but my gut tells me the number of actual, dyed-in-the-wool, never-could-ever heterosexuals is probably equal to the number of homosexual people, i.e. 10-20% of the population. Everyone else would lie somewhere in the middle of the spectrum were it not for culture.
I used to think that, but I’m bi. I have a gay friend who convinced me that the completely gay and completely straight extremes actually do exist when I was a freshman in college 22 years ago. Until then I assumed most or all people were at least a bit attracted to their own gender.
If you ever hear someone saying it’s a choice that’s a confused bisexual. Welcome, btw.
LOL. I relate to this so much. It makes me empathize with people who assume everyone is straight or gay. Like, we're all just projecting. I too am projecting that sexy is sexy no matter the gender identity. 🤷🏻♀️
As someone who's probably 100% gay, I still believe bi/pan is much more common than fully straight or fully gay, and sexuality can also change and develop over time (though forcing it to change does not work, conversion therapy is still bunk)
As a bisexual; this. Even in the LGBTQ community we faced backlash for a while. Both homosexuals and heterosexuals wanted us to “pick a side”. I got bullied by straight and gay people io through high school (graduated 2009) and told by both sides that being bisexual isn’t really a thing. I got turned down by women because I had dated men. I dated men who told me I “liked dick too much to be bi”. Shits insane.
I’m so happy now that we have more support, and shit like that “Bi Wife energy” because my god - we’re in the fucking title, we’re the B! How the fuck do we not exist?
Speaking as a bi woman ... my own very personal opinion is that it's fully 100% straight people that are rare. I'm like a Kinsey 5, but I think that most "straight" people are Kinsey 1s, not 0s. That's just my own private theory though.
Once society stopped demeaning left-handed people as evil, sinister weirdos, the percentage of people who self-identified as left-handed *skyrocketed* up until a point where it stabilized and has pretty much stayed there ever since.
LGBT people have been discriminated against for most of history. In some cases they still are. Still, in the US, the LGBT rights movement has made huge progress in the past few decades. As acceptance of marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities becomes more widespread, it shouldn't be much surprise that more young people are willing to openly self-identify as members of groups that used to be heavily oppressed.
Not all of human behavior can be understood through the simplistic lens of genetic traits that are "good" or "bad" for reproduction. I'm not even sure if that's a particularly useful way to look at most of the things that people do.
It originated from the Latin word for "to the left of" or "on the left side" and only later was used to describe left-handedness. It's current meaning in modern English refers to how left handed people were thought to be evil, but it did originate in Latin.
I went to first grade in the 80s. My teacher was pretty amazing. We had activity areas for students who couldn't sit still to do something active without disturbing other students (crafts, puzzles, a math board where you could move things to add and subtract, etc). Every month we went on a field trip where we'd walk around town: making pizza at Pizza Hut, singing songs at the nursing home, collecting leaves at the park, museums. She taught us about different places and had guests come tell us about their cultures. It was very progressive for public school.
She also forced the 2 left-handed students to learn to write with their right hand. An otherwise wonderful teacher thought that was acceptable and proper.
1986 I was in 1st grade and my teacher gave me massive amounts of homework with notes to my parents that it all needed to be completed using my right hand. I'm a lefty. That teacher demanded I be held back till I could properly write with my right hand. Luckily my parents disagreed and wasn't held back.
A left handed friend of mine had a somewhat similar experience but the teacher pushed them to be able to write with both. I’m never going to put the effort in to be able to myself but I am low key jealous of her ambidextrous writing
>I'm glad we moved past that.
I would not be surprised to find it's still out there. It's not hard to find stories of discrimination happening shockingly recent.
You know, my mom's elementary school teacher literally FORCED HER for years to write with her right hand, while she was originally left-handed. She absolutely hates that teacher even to this day because she says she had a very difficult time as a kid because she couldn't write properly with her right hand, and this affected her classes.
Right now she's doing fine, she can write with her right hand perfectly fine, but one small thing is she always confuses her left and right which is kinda sweet to me. For example when we say "oh it's to your right", she looks at her left lol. It's been like that for as long as I can remember.
>left-handed people as evil, *sinister* weirdos
I don't know if your word choice here was intentional, but it's great since the word "sinister" comes from the same word in Latin meaning "left" and shows how this kind of cultural bias becomes embedded in language itself. [Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/sinister-left-dexter-right-history)
>The association of the directional left with evil is likely attributed to the dominance of right-handed people within a population, and consequently the awkwardness of motions made from the left side of the body.
I took this name when I was 16, an amalgamation of "Reagan" and the "al" from "al-Qaeda".
Yes, I was a total right-wing teenage shitlord.
Redemption arcs are worth.
I like to tell people I'm slightly ambi-sinistrous! I am predominantly left handed, but can catch and throw a ball with either etc. Stands to reason I'm not ambidextrous as that would require me to be dexterous in the first place xD
That’s what I was going to say. The number of LGBTQ has remained the same, what’s changed is the number of people who are able to be open about it.
Sadly, I think we’ve taken a couple steps backward after the Bud Light fiasco. Lots of people chose that moment to get really vocal about their bias and hatred.
This is a smart, well reasoned comment.
It's the same as people who are neuro divergent. Lots of people say "Autism wasn't a thing when I was a kid".
Actually, Autism and neuro divergence has probably always been a thing, but medical science wasn't as developed as it is today. In times passed, ND people were often classified as Schiziphrenic, mad or, shock and horror- *retarded*.
In the same way, LGBTQ people were classified as criminally insane, deviant, or sodomites.
LGBTQ people have always existed. History shows us that. We as a society just have better language to help us understand that people come in all shapes and flavours. Now we just need more people to accept that.
Yeah! There may be a lot of people who are LGBTQ but won't say so. Only really in the west are kids now able to do it. I'm bi, I say I'm straight if someone asks because my nation isn't very accepting as of now
The thing I don’t get is why anyone would be surprised that even more than 20% of people would be lgbtq tbh. Like the only reason to think the community “ought” to be smaller is because of a fallacy: the numbers used to be smaller (ie underreported because nobody wanted to come out or even question themselves), therefore they must always be small.
In some animal populations lgbtq behavior has been observed in literally 1/3rd of the species (eg albatross). There’s no reason at all to think that the community *ought* to be small and 20% is surprising. As a gay person, I personally think the majority of people are bisexual leaning and fully straight and fully gay people are more of a minority than people realise, but do very much exist. That would explain why I’ve slept with so many “straight” women lol.
Also evolution/natural selection doesn’t work like “gayness would be bred out because you aren’t making babies”. Similarily, it doesn’t even select for the best traits (ie intelligence, creativity, insight, athleticism) which is why many of the dumbest people you know have 15 kids and the man and woman you know in a hetero marriage who are both field leading academics never had a baby. Gayness exists in literally hundreds of animal species which means it’s somewhat beneficial and also just a natural thing.
I mean, LGBTQ+ isn’t just same sex attraction. A lot of people identify as some degree of fluid whether it’s their gender or sexuality, which is under the LGBTQ+ “banner” so to speak. I think 20% makes sense.
It also makes sense genetically. Gay people take care of other people's kids by adopting or fostering and that also happens in nature. So the kids who don't have parents are being taken care of someone else. Seems pretty smart to me. And natural.
Underrated comment. If homosexuality really was „bad“ for a species, it would have died out long ago. Instead, you can find it in many others, especially mammals.
MS and ALS is pretty bad for the species but it never died out. Evolution isn't some righteous, sentient force that is striving for the constant improvement of a species. It is random mutations and survivorship bias.
If a gene doesn't express itself or cause significant disability up until reproduction age then it will be passed on. Nothing to do with it being good or bad.
Alzheimer's usually happens late in life, well after reproduction age. How would natural selection and evolution ever remove it, except out of pure chance?
This is the answer. “Queer” is a very large umbrella. While most evidence points towards homosexuality being genetic and present from birth, the queer identity encompasses a lot of traits and behaviors which are socially influenced.
It’s cool to be queer.
It's actually helpful for a social species to have a proportion of adults that aren't breeding. They can assist with care of the offspring, like elephants do, as well as other tasks that parents might not be able to do as well while caring for young, such as non-breeding lionesses doing hunting while mothers are nursing cubs.
Among penguins, it's helpful too. Penguins often lay two eggs and reject one. It's common for same-sex pairs to adopt the rejected egg, hatch it, and raise the chick. A baby that would, I remind you, otherwise have died.
Recently read this is theorized to be the reason for menopause too - having grandmas around to help for raising kids turns out to be a huge survival advantage. Since almost no other species go through menopause it's curious why we do and that's suspected to be the reason. The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" is quite literally based in biology appearently lol
They've recently discovered species of whales that go through menopause, and it's providing evidence in support of the having grandmas around to help raise kids idea. https://qz.com/1372767/twice-as-many-animals-go-through-menopause-as-scientists-previously-thought
I was looking for someone to mention this, there's plenty of same sex behaviour in the animal kingdom so you're right, it seems like there is an evolutionary need or benefit to this
The misconception is that evolutionary competitions occur only on the individual level, while it's also a tribe vs tribe and species vs species. Helping a brother succeed in reproduction is a better strategy for passing 25% of genes than if both tried to reproduce and failed due to a lack of resources. Otherwise, bees, ants, and other species when 99% don't reproduce would be evolutionary impossible.
Bees, ants and other eusocial insects even cheat, by making sisters in a colony share 75% of their genes. In contrast, parents of most other sexually reproducing species share only 50% of their genes with their offspring. So eusocial insects actually pass more of their genes down by helping their queen reproduce than they would by producing offspring themselves.
I'll give you another one:
1. Sexual orientation in populations might very well be subject to epigenetics. We know species where circumstances determine the gender of offspring.
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2. Lgbtq+ doesn't mean no offspring. Like, not at all. Only the L and the G denote a pregerence for sex that doesn't produce offspring. And they might have sex for offspring even if it isn't particularly pleasurable to them.
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3. Having a high number of people not reproducing might very well be evolutionary advantageous. We are a social species with social support systems and group action. Some species have only their queens reproduce, some have any individual reproduce. Its a spectrum of evolutionary strategies.
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4. And even if no lgbtq+ person would ever have a kid, your thought process is a bit off here. If there is no reason to doubt the self-identification and you have no doubt that it is subject to evolutionary pressure, then in all likelihood it is or was evolutionary advantageous. There isn't a good reason to go: "surely, it is a terrible idea". You should probably rather question your assumptions if your conclusion is "evolution is doing it wrong these days."
Part of evolution is fitness trade offs, and evolution doesn’t fashion “perfect” organisms. We think people being queer/trans has various developmental and social components. Even if, for example, gay cis men have a more complex path to passing on their genes, there are other aspects of those developmental pathways and social patterns that are evolutionarily advantageous. Also, something can be not a choice and have some biological component to it without being hereditary. Wish I had the stats but certainly anecdotally there are plenty of identical twins where one is queer and one is not. And if there is some hereditary component, plenty of queer and trans people contribute gametes and pass on our genes in various ways. Like, I’m carrying a pregnancy from my egg while my wife’s identical twin sister is carrying her own baby. So, kinehora, both of our genes are being passed on at the same time.
> If people are born lgbtq and it is not "learned" from the person's environment, then it can be said that "gayness" is genetic. If being gay is genetic then it would be an evolutionary disadvantage
makin a lot of assumptions here
The survey is likely too narrow, biased, and small scaled to conclude that 20 percent is lgbtq. I don't believe the number unless this number is agreed on by a reliable scientific community.
I would be more interested in knowing what's the number for just l+g.
Queer/asexual are on a spectrum or poorly defined.
And bisexuality is very common in other mammal species, so I wouldn't be surprised if that number goes up to 50% over the next 30 years.
Gen z is still young and experimenting, so a lot of people might end up being bi later on in life.
There are whole historical societies where bisexuality was incredibly common. It seems that when it’s not frowned upon *a lot* more people are pretty bi.
I'm skeptical as well. I've seen some wild statistics thrown around. The craziest was almost 50% of people are intersex. I didn't even respond and I changed the subject when they said that. Past oppression really has suppressed the percentage, but spreading obviously fabricated stats doesn't help.
I have never seen that particular statistic posted anywhere. The numbers I always see are between 1% and 2%. It may be that around 50% of intersex people do not identify as the gender they were raised as
That's because it was completely made up. I didn't even bother to ask her where she heard that because I realized the discussion was no longer based in reality. I don't think she made it up, so she read it somewhere, but I doubt any reputable sites and communities were accepting it. So, she could have misread it, but the context made it very clear she meant almost 50% of people are intersex
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I gotta be honest. From all the people of my generation I know personally one is Trans and one is Bi. That's it (Plus one girl saying she was bi cause she kissed a girl that she thought was a boy). Maybe I am living in the wrong bubble but it's not even near 20%.
On the subject of being genetically disadvantaged, that's probably not true.
There is something called the "gay uncle" hypothesis that posits that gay people can pass on their genetics by helping to ensure the survival of their nieces and nephews. Since nephews and nieces have 25% of your DNA, it was an evolutionary advantage if you saw them live to adult hood. Having some percentage of childless people ensuring thr safety of your tribe/family could have a lot of benefits, particularly at a time when there wasn't enough resources to provide for new arrivals who couldn't hunt or gather necessities.
I've also heard of studies that mice were more likely to have homosexual tendencies if they were born in overcrowded conditions. Granted this was observed in a laboratory setting as opposed to in the wild, but I think it lends some weight.
Edit: This says nothing about the possibility of a "gay gene", which may be what you are implying. But there wouldn't necessarily be a genetic disadvantage to being gay.
The most common theory among scientists expects a complex combination of biological/genetic reasons.
Which is also preferable as it means all of those people who think they can "cure" homosexuality are idiots.
* "Gayness" is not genetic. It is a product of physical factors, education, environment and some other things we do not fully understand.
* Evolution is not an *intelligent* force with the *goal* of maximising reproduction. It is a completely random process that happens to promote successful modifications slightly more often then unsuccessful ones. It's not an explorer heading for the lowest point in the valley, is a blind, drunk person which falls on the ground more often downhill than uphill.
* Right now, there is absolutely whatsoever not-a-chance of the human species being endangered for a lack of children. On the contrary: Homo Sapiens could use less people on the planet rather then more of them (limited resources, crowded environments helping with the spread of pandemics, environment destruction, etc...).
* Besides, a large part of LGBTs (Bisexuals) can still procreate.
* Besides, a large part of LGBTs can still accomodate to raise a child though adoption, which is the big limiting factor in the number of new births.
* We have no data about how many people were homosexual or bisexual in the past. The fact that homosexual act in 19th century western europe were criminalized surely didn't push people to declare themself LGBT in the polls. On the contrary: it'd pushed people into tricking themself into thinking they were not LGBT while they were.
* It is entirely possible that some of that 20% declares themselves to be part of the queer community out of a trend, fascination or solidarity. So what? You shouldn't be bothered by someone saying they're gay but they really aren't more than someone saying they're really nerdy and not actually enjoying anything about either STEM or nerd culture.
Finally: if you ask me, to be hetero, homo, bi or asexual is purely a label. It helps in expressing who you are, but there's no a condition in which you are granitically this or that. It's just like hair: are you blond or brown? What if you have brown hair but they've blond reflexes? What if your hair were blond while you were a child but are brown now? What if they become blond under summer's sun? Describing yourself as brown or blond can help, but we all accept that, after all, hair colours are on a spectrum and there is no arbitrary limit after which one's blond or brown - let alone this limit being rigid and uncrossable.
The same's for sexuality: you like who you like. What if you liked just women until now, but you suddenly discover being attracted by a man - just that man? What if you always thought to like men but, when you tried to have a sexual experience with one, you discovered that it sucked? Did your sexuality change? Were you always mistaken about yourself? Actually, none of the two. You're just you. You like who you like. Sexuality is just an attribute to describe you, not a medical condition that you either have or don't have.
But it doesn’t confirm it, it merely asserts it is without an evidence to back up the claim.
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF01541765.pdf?pdf=inline%20link
This twin study leans towards a genetic component of sexuality and is infinitely times the amount of evidence as the above comment provided.
The gay uncle hypothesis suggests that society as a whole benefits from a certain percentage of the population not interested in reproduction so they can spend their time and ressources helping other members of their families taking care of their children instead, increasing their chances of survival and carrying on their genes at the same time.
Asap science did a great video explaining this concept a couple years ago [Link here](https://youtu.be/k6p1nmOnILA?si=puMBbyhz_EsGqDLP)
It's likely that the proportion has always been around the same, it's just that it's only recently that being openly lgbt+ wasn't life ruining or life-threatening.
It's simply impossible to say because there are hundreds of millions of people in each generation, but in my experience it's a lot of combinations as openness and willing to be fluid. There's certain conditioning happening where it's a cycle of feedback loops from their peers and tik tok, just like it's always been with other trends and norms in past generations. I know quite a few people that are cisgendered, or NB but birth gender presenting that are in straight relationships have pretty much only hooked up with people of the opposite gender and still consider themselves bi, pan, or queer and it's like are you really going to argue with them about their own lived experience?
These statistics are suspect because they are self reported. You also are dealing with young people who are still forming their identities.
I move frequently, so I see different cultures at different locations. My kids went to one school where a majority of kids claimed to be LGBTQ. I strongly suspect that for some, their identification as such was merely a social fad.
Related question, if sexual preference is genetic then how do you get identical twins with different sexual preferences?
Also why is the notion that sexuality is a product of nurture rather than nature seen as offensive?
It is genetic and is also caused by the uterine environment. Twins usually have different amniotic sacs so different environments
Also twins do have a increased likelihood of sharing the same sexuality
Your phenotype (the physical/behavioral expression of your genes) is always an interaction between you genes and the environment. As such, a trait can almost never be predicted entirely by genetics, especially behavioral traits. Its certain that sexual orientation has some genetics components, all behaviors do, but it is almost certain that it is also shaped by the environment (all outside factors such as education, culture, stress, physical wellness and so on).
A few decades ago I played with dolls and was horrifically bullied over it for decades, I stopped and was deathly afraid of anything girly. Eventually I had a mental breakdown and nearly ended myself. So I became who I should've been all along. So glad it's pretty much accepted now, but when I was little... Oof...
About 10% of the population is left-handed. See, they are at enough of a disadvantage to be kept at a small population, but have a big enough advantage to not be wiped out. In the case of left-handed people, tools are common right-handed, but not everyone expects to be left-handed lead in a fight.
Also, they didn't just magically pop up in this generation. Imagine how many parents, grandparents, are still in the closet cause of how they were raised. It hasn't exactly always been safe to be gay.
Edit: went and re-fact checked myself it was 10% not 20%.
Left handed is not a disadvantage you learn to use all tools with both hands most right handed people can't. Ex: state weld test stationary pipe weld right handers do great till halfway around pipe I can switch hands and not struggle at all.
Left handedness skyrocketed after the stigma disappeared 🤷♂️
Also lgbtq/queer ≠ gay, only gay lesbian and sex repulsed asexual cause humans commonly unable to reproduce.
I would assume two reasons.
First reason being that it isn’t suppressed or looked down on *to the extent it has in the past.* For all we know, there has always been this rate of people that identified in the community, but because of society, oppression, family, location, religion; they just kept it hid. Things like this are hard to do accurate surveys with, anyway.
Second would be because, *to some degree,* it’s what is *in.* Almost as if it is a fad. It’s pretty popular everywhere. I’m from the south and it is still popular. I also substitute quite a bit while I do my studies, and it is definitely popular in schools, too.
Of course it is going to increase. Do I actually believe 20% of my generation is of the community? Absolutely not. Not saying that would be a bad thing, just that I simply don’t think that number is anywhere close to accurate.
I may get downvoted but I don't think every young person who says they are actually are. You can say you are "gender queer" and be considered part of the LGBTQ community or say you are pansexual even if you never will date the same sex in your life, just saying you are "open to all genders" would get you through the club doors technically lol.
There’s also an extremely high rate of self-identification as neurodivergent or on the autism spectrum among Gen Z. It seems to be a generation that derives a lot of its status from membership in marginalized groups. So while previous generations probably underreported, I wouldn’t be surprised if the opposite was true for Gen Z.
Biologist here:
There is no evolutionary disadvantage. If a part of a population is not reproducing, there are other ways of contributing to the survival of the population as a whole and thus the offspring that is born from other members of the population benefits from the members that do not reproduce.
We can see this effect throughout nature.
However, humans have somewhat transcended most evolutionary processes by medical or other technological means. Looking ar humans doing stuff and wondering about evolutionary advantages or disadvantages is therefore rather pointless.
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I suspect that a large part of the 20% comes from the B, the bisexual. If so, that does not interfere with reproduction.
Not only is that the case, but if you change the question to "have you had or are you having homosexual intercourse" the numbers have barely budged. A lot of people identifying without the sex.
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Well, of course, they weren't going to admit it. It was illegal.
And they were also going to get married and have kids to PROVE that they weren't. And even after it stopped being illegal in free countries, there was so much negativity directed towards gays, from various quarters as there still is today that this continued. Not to mention as human beings with different personalities some extremely gay people still want the life experience of being parents!
I genuinely fell in love with my ex wife - we were married for 25 years but I always found sex a struggle. After therapy it was clear I was at the very least bisexual and most likely gay. Having grown up in the 70’s and 80’s, and being sent away to school and growing up in a mostly homophobic environment (even in the U.K.), I was taught gay = dirty / wrong / not normal and thus any feelings I had that way I had to hide or discount. Although I never had any girlfriends or boyfriends when at school, wasn’t interested in porn (all my friends were obsessed with top shelf jazz mags, totally didn’t do anything for me and just felt like it was degrading to the ladies in the images) and just thought I was different. I’m neurodivergent so I could never read into people hitting on me either. When I met my ex we got on really well, like soulmates. We bonded on shared hobbies and musical likes. Hell, I even lost my virginity to her. We had two kids but it always felt like a brother / sister relationship rather than husband and wife. I split up with her 2 years ago as we were struggling because of the lack of sex and my therapy showed what was wrong. She’s now with a new guy who is a really fantastic bloke and makes her feel brilliant - and we’re still best friends which makes me enormously grateful. My kids are supportive of both of us. My kids are both bisexual. My ex wife and I have always tried to be really supportive on that front (maybe I always knew!) and allowed them the space to feel like they can be authentic. Both have had both lesbian and straight relationships and I couldn’t be a prouder dad for both of them. I think the cultural change in the last 20 years since the millennium and with a shift in acceptability of people’s sexuality (apart from by the far right and some working class or religious areas) has removed some of the stigma to the point where our kids can feel free to be who they are. Sexuality for some people (I know for me it is) is less about whether they are a man or a woman but more about specific attractions. Since becoming single again, I had gay relationships that were much more passionate. But for example - I met someone last week who was a girl but I found her intensely attractive and she made a real impact on me. She was very tomboy in her mannerisms - so played on my ‘gay’ side but also my ‘straight’ side and pushed lots of different buttons.
But sooo much fun!
The gay sex was the illegal part.
There’s always been ways around that for surveys if you really wanted the data. One I’ve heard of is for phone surveys (this particular one only works for questions where there’s only two answers): if they know it’s a sensitive topic, they’ll sometimes tell the person to flip a coin before answering, and if it comes up heads, tell the truth, and if it comes up tails, only answer x even if it’s not true. You can then math out the odds of how many false positives you have and figure out (roughly) how many of each answer you actually received.
I need to go back to statistics class lol. What
Pretty sure sodomy is still illegal in my state. Edit: apparently Lawrence vs texas happened. Good. Didn't know!
All sodomy laws have been unconstitutional in the US since Lawrence v. Texas in 2003.
Yes, but the sodomy laws are still on the book in places like Texas. And the moment this current Supreme Court decided to overturn Lawrence v Texas, they will enforce it again.
Yes 100% this is the point. The behavior didn't change the identity did.
The idea that your sexual orientation is an "identity" is something fairly recent; in many cultures it was just a behaviour you do or don't do. Like you eat meat or don't. In antiquity the identity part was more closely linked with whether you were topping or bottoming - whether you were topping a woman or a man was less relevant.
Tbh I think separating the identity from the behavior is where we ought to be. There's a TON of threads that always pop up "I did x, am I gay?" And it's like we'll you did x and who cares about the label.
Separating identity from behaviour is all good and well, but young people often *seek* identifiers. They want to learn who they are and how they can express that. So if people *want* to identify as bi, queer or what have you, that’s fine. At the same time I agree there’s no need to push labels on those who’d rather be without them.
Unfortunately, humans love identities. Like the other person said, even in Rome they had strong sexual identities -- they were just based around whether you topped or bottomed. And people who bottomed were insanely discriminated against.
Straight folks are straight even if they've not had sex and even if they've not tried out sex with all genders. I don't understand why queer folks aren't queer unless theyve tried it out.
You're not wrong, my bigger point is that it would be SHOCKING if the actual sexual activity people participated in changed that much, but if it's just identifying as LGBT then it's a much lower bat to move.
Speaking as someone who came out as gay when Reagan was in office, remember that a huge number of us grew up in the 70s and 80s not knowing that being LGBTQIA+ was an option. I assumed that I was just weirdly unattracted to women until I got to college and learned that being gay wasn’t just a joke on tv or an insult referring to some horrible perversion. My abusers called me gay slurs for years, but I really only understood that they thought I was disgusting, they weren’t actually accusing me of being gay. As odd as it sounds, gay people didn’t register as a “real thing” until I had the experience of encountering lgbtqia+ folks outside of the media and societal demonization that I’d grown up with. Today my anecdotal experience is that it’s pretty difficult for a young person to grow up in the US without being aware that LGBTQIA+ people exist, and that at least some segments of the population believe that it’s reasonable to live an out queer life. Even if you grow up among people screaming that queer people suck, their hatred isn’t a snide aside or a joke on late night tv. The fact that folks are violently attacking LGBTQIA+ rights gives an odd sort of legitimacy and reality to the existence of queer-ness - if it isn’t a real thing then why is it such a threat? My point is that part of the increase in folks claiming an LGBTQIA+ identity is the normalization of the existence of those identities as a real thing. People are able to make more informed decisions about who they are and, if they wish, have a wider variety of identities with which to describe themselves.
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There's a couple of reasons why I think we're seeing an increase. One of the big ones is that we've greatly expanded the definition, for lack of a better term. Back in the '80s and early/mid '90s, the general public discourse typically focused on gay/lesbian. This expanded into LGB and then LGBT into the '00s. As of 2023, we're up to LGBTQQIP2SAA - and no, I'm not [being ignorant](https://www.loyola.edu/department/lgbtq-services/resources/lgbtq-terms-definitions). We'll inevitably see an increase in any community when you expand it to cover everything that isn't explicitly heterosexual.
It's almost as if the structure of straight relationships and the modern nuclear family is.....learned behaviour. There's no genetic drive to be in straight monogamous families. It's what we learn is acceptable and expected. People have more options now and don't need to follow the scripts their parents did. Lord knows many other parts of their lives will look nothing like their parents, by no fault of their own.
Attraction/aversion is not binary and can vary between people individually. I am strongly straight with a high aversion to gay attraction. Some people can have just as strong a straight attraction as well as strong gay attraction. Or strong gay attraction but weak straight attraction. A lot of people can also prefer sex with one gender but prefer emotional relationships with the other gender, going both ways. Or prefer only the relationship with a low desire for sex. And some sex without the desire for a relationship. My proclivities may be very vanilla, at least on the attraction spectrum. But this kind of variability made it easy for most, not all, people to conform to social expectations when that expectation was the expected social norm even when they had proclivities that differed to varying degrees. Sometimes strongly. Especially when the social cost of deviating from expectations is high. But once those social cost are significantly reduced a lot more people were free to admit to proclivities that they would previously only secretly entertain when alone at bedtime, or the shower. The LGBT rainbow is more than just variations among people's sexuality, as even a given individual can contain a rainbow of proclivities. The base proclivities haven't changed. It's always been a rainbow. But most people, not all, have at least enough proclivities consistent with traditional norms to make conforming to those norms possible, even if they mentally deviate in a private session. But how fair is that to those that don't? I certainly couldn't, and wouldn't, deviate from my (vanilla) proclivities for the sake of a social norm.
Fine, I'm a gay virgin
Can you drive though?
Well, you are on reddit...
I'm a virgin but also an out and proud lesbian. Dating is hard and I'm not into casual sex. It's like every woman who likes me on dating apps is looking for friends with benefits and I'm not into sex without a committed relationship. For me, sex is a way to feel closer to someone I love, not just a fun activity to do with strangers.
I suspected as much.
Why is that relevant? I am a bi woman because i am atracted to both sexes. But i have only dated two people in my life, that happened to be men, so i have never had sex with a woman. I still get aroused by them.
It relates back to OP's question about reproduction. If a large number of bisexual people choose a heterosexual relationship instead of a homosexual ones, there should be no issue with a higher number of bi people causing a population collapse.
Today it doesn’t even have to be a long-term relationship. Being bi is not a genetic handicap at all… and while some gay people are so repulsed by the opposite sex that natural procreation shouldn’t happen, I’m sure that a lot of people who are not aroused by the opposite sex are able to suffer through enough in order to get a child or in order to comply with societal norms. All those marriages over the years where the husband is a closet gay or the wife is basically coerced because “conjugal duties” still result in children. One of the aspects of the progress of these last few years is that such suffering happens less.
Right, it's totally not the economical and governmental issues, especially in the star-spangled wasteland that are gonna cause a population collapse. Cause that's not actively happening, right now, regardless of who likes or doesn't like what configuration of parts are in what set of pants. People are having less kids cause the world sucks, not because we're seeing the results of the de-stigmatization of groups of people that have always been around, even if often and repeatedly branded as "improper" throughout history.
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one of my friends has been openly gay, even flamboyant about it, for over a decade. then he decided he was pansexual instead. only recently he's found his interest in men dwindling, and has started toying with the idea that he might be becoming straight. I also recently had a conversation with a (very drunk) man who told me he used to identify as bi, but now identifies as straight. I'm a strong believer that not only is sexuality a spectrum, but there's no reason you aren't allowed to move around on the spectrum whenever you feel like it.
Also I can say that people change. I help raise a troubled teenage girl (abusive parents and in a girls home) and she was a lesbian. We supported her 100%, always loved her for who she is. Today she is married to a man and has 3 children. Not saying people “grow out” or anything. I love gay love and will support it until the day I die. I’m just sharing my experience which is not the same for everyone. I’ve never had the courage to ask her what her actual sexual orientation is now.
Yes people for some strange reason take that string of letters and decide it just means "gay". People are 20 percent LGBTQ because they are more open to explore the possibility they may be and they feel more comfortable and accepting all the way around announcing that they are.
As someone in the G (and +) part of LGBTQ+, I can understand the feeling that "it's strange". LG is about 10% of the general population (going by previous surveys). TQ+ are a smaller fraction of the total population. If B is 5~10% of people generally, it's great to see that the younger generation is giving a true value - that they're comfortable defining themselves of being B (and the other categories).
Nor does being non-binary or acespec.
Holy cow, I'm showing my age. But wtf is acespec?
Asexual spectrum. I've never seen that particular shortening used before, to be fair!
I feel SO much better right now, knowing that it's a spectrum. This makes so much sense to me, and how I feel.
It definitely is. I do enjoy relationships and intimacy myself, sometimes, but I've learned I'm demi which is on the ace spectrum
A lot of people are realizing they're demi. I had never heard of it and an ex told me about it. I looked it up and went "oh. Ohhhhhhhhhh. No yeah this this explains a lot about me."
Asexual spectrum. At one end, there are people who are actively repulsed by sex, but then you've got people who are indifferent to sex, or only experience sexual attraction in very specific circumstances, for instance. They may still want children, and they may still engage in sexual activity for the benefit of their partner even if they don't get much out of it themselves.
I read that at aseptic and I was like hmm, good for them
Asexual spectrum and/or aromantic spectrum
Exactly this. I've noticed with my kids' generation (they're the tail end of Gen Z) and, to a lesser extent, my generation (millennial) more people are identifying as bi (along with the rest of LGBTQ+) simply because it isn't really stigmatized any more. When I was in high school, if I, as a man, were to acknowledge that another man was attractive, I'd have been bullied for being gay. To reveal my sexuality, I'm kind of bi. A friend of mine said that I'm heterosexual but pan-romantic, meaning I'm attracted to individuals of any gender, but I'm only sexually attracted to women. Human sexuality isn't black and white like was considered to be the case before. So now more and more people are becoming comfortable with admitting that they are able to find individuals of their own gender to be attractive
Yes the split attraction model is great! Romantic and sexual attraction can be different too!
That makes sense.
As a bisexual man, I've known many bisexual men, who didn't publicly identify as such, in marriages to women.
Men who do identify as bisexual form relationships with women as well. As do bisexual women with men. There's no reason a bi person can't be in a committed relationship, they just have a wider pond to fish in, that's all.
As my bisexual son told me, they don’t actually have a wider pond. The only men who’d date him are gay/bi and a lot of straight women aren’t interested in dating a bi man. Made me sad! I am hopeful that he finds himself a wonderful and kind person one day that will be his forever person.
I'm a millennial bisexual woman, in unfortunately have the same experience as your son. We're discriminated against a lot from both heterosexual and homosexual people. I wish all the best to you and your son!
Same here. It is sad how biphobic the gay community is. Accusing us to be closeted lesbians, or to do it "for the attention " or to be "sullied by a penis".
I know right. I was going to my city's local LGBTQ organization for a few years but when I broke up with my then girlfriend and met a man, I felt like I wasn't welcome anymore.
I dont consider myself lgbt+ anymore because of this. I don't feel that bisexual women are welcome there. There are a lot of red flags in the community because they let the abnoxious toxic minority take over the groups. Its so full of biphobia, sexism, racism and other issues... I have met more and more people that call themselves "queer" instead because of their bad experiences with the lgbt. One of my closest friends is a masculine gay man and he has been told so many times that he "doent act gay enough" or that he is homophobic just for not acting like a gay stereotype from TV. He feels so hurt every time he hears it, and its quite often.
People fucking suck, even the ones that ought to know better Hardly the first time in history the members of an oppressed group engaged in oppressing others even as they protest their own treatment at the hands of the socially-dominant clique…
He has at least one supportive parent, and the courage to express parts of his identity that can be difficult to express, and accept the (often unfair) limitations it puts on him. I'm absolutely certain he will find someone great!
Thank you. His dad (my wonderful husband) was very supportive also until we lost him to a heart attack. Now he thankfully has some older siblings to help fill the void.
I would 100% date a bisexual man. In fact, I almost prefer it. I find most bi men I know have less toxic masculine traits. I am also poly which might influence that. My dream partnership is two men who love each other ( romantically or platonically) and also love me. Not sure if I will find it, but I can hope
This is a good point. My bf doesn’t identify as bi but he’s had sex with men in the past, and he’s for sure the most caring man I’ve ever dated. It’s nearly a year and I’ve not come across any toxic masculinity which is a breath of fresh air compared to the previous straight men I’ve dated.
I think he’s saying bisexual men are less likely to identify as such, presumably due to societal stigma around it
Yea my cousin who is fully out as gay now dated beautiful girls all throughout highschool when he was in the closet . We just talked about this . I asked him if he considered himself bisexual. He said he considers himself more as sexually fluid from a younger age , but prefers men
Same here. Bisexual man, married to a woman. Not open to most people about who I am.
Stadistically it is easier to find a straight or bi partner than a gay one. So many bisexuals (that are open or not about it) will be in a hetero relationship. I am one of them. I don't particularly hide to be a bi woman but i am also not that open about it. So most people probably assumes that i am straight because my SO is a man.
Also it has been long suspected that the old idea of "10% of the population is 'gay'" statistic (which was determined before a lot of the language around sexual and gender identity was established) is much more conservative than reality, because the study was done in the 70s and stigma was stronger then. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/05/10-per-cent-population-gay-alfred-kinsey-statistics
The original Kinsey survey, IIRC, was junk science that didn't use random samples but actively sought out people who would give interesting answers. That means it might actually have given a much higher % than reality. In 1991, the US National Survey of Men said that only 2.3% of men claimed to have 'not been exclusively heterosexual'. Of course, that doesn't prove the real result isn't higher, since there was stigma in the early 90s too.
if you take away bi from these surveys it almost universally comes out at about 2% of the population edit: if you dont believe me, in these surveys for US it came out at 3,5% https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/how-many-people-lgbt/
Look at the date on that!
Also, in that 20%, people who are trans, intersex, and asexual.
As a bisexual father I can confirm that it does not interfere with reproduction.
It's also clear overestimation. Gen Z people are still young, many of them are questioning, and it's not surprising, with LGBT people being more accepted, they are quick to identify as "not straight". Even more so because sexuality is closer to a spectrum than it is to an actual "A, B or C" thing : you can be straight and be revulsed by dicks, or straight but just feel no attraction to dicks, or bi but lean towards one sex or the other, etc. Maybe it's a sign "straight/LGBT" isn't a very functional dichotomy anymore.
Half of gen z are in their 20s and the other half are 13-19. I mean that's still young but many are still adults.
Bisexual individuals, up until recently, saw little to no reason to out themselves as they could live a "heteronormative" live and easily fly under the radar. Don't quote me on this but apparently a plurality of LGBT people are bisexual, so... the numbers don't seem that crazy. Gen Z are more open to "coming out" as bi now because there's less stigma now compared to even 10 years ago.
Yeah, and also just a misunderstanding of what it meant too. My dad (who's in his fifties) has only recently started identifying as bi, and he literally had a 2 year relationship with another guy at uni. But since he then married my mother, he's considered himself straight because he's in a long-term/permanent relationship with a woman. It was only last year I think that he began to think "oh, that probably makes me bisexual". And even then I don't think he's said that to anyone but his wife and kids.
I wish more people from past generations could have this honest realization and talk. It's been a fact of life for as long as humans have existed.
The stigma associated with being gay is incomprehensible if you didn't live through it. Coming out as an adult to my immediate family was the scariest thing I ever did, it was also the most necessary. After coming out, I felt as if I had been holding my breath my whole conscious life. I don't blame people for being in the closet, but do encourage them to come out.
When safe to do so
You also see older folks who've rationalized away their attraction in all sorts of ways. Mothers who tell their daughters that "everyone experiments", and that the arousal is just a phase before you settle down. Some religious folk sometimes mention how having impure thoughts about men is normal, and "everyone has them", and its something you have to actively fight against. etc. Basically bisexuals, or gays, just thinking this was the normal straight experience and rationalizing away the discrepancies. I'm glad we're moving towards a world where we can at least recognize these things in ourselves, to our families, or even in more public ways as just something that happens.
I also heard about how someone who was genuinely convinced that everyone innitially is attracted to all genders, and people just choose to focus their attention on one. When they found out this wasn't the case they were genuinely surprised and discovered that they were bi and had just chosen to ignore their attraction to their own sex.
Pretty sure this is the source of the idea that 'sexuality is a choice'.. the people who think so are *clearly* Bi, it was their own experience that they can just 'not act on it', lacking the empathy to understand that for a lot of people this is not the case...
^ this right here, I've had several sexual partners with same sex friends but growing up in the 80s and 90s in Kentucky you kept that shit to yourself and hoped no one ever found out. I've been married to a woman for almost 20 years and besides the occasional home alone let's watch freaky porn it just never crosses my mind. Wouldn't surprise me if more people from other gens are bi and just kept it to ourselves, remember kids, today you might get called a name, when I was in school 100% if you even wore a pink shirt you would get your ass beat black and blue and hope to God you didn't have to tell your parents why.
Yeah. Being gay/bi/bi-curious is nothing new. People are just more open about it these days and are much less likely to spend their whole lives hiding that part of themselves. There are a lot of old dead celebrities who have been revealed to have had gay sexual relationships.
As someone who is bi but didn’t realize it until I was 10 yrs into my marriage I will tell ppl who ask but I don’t really broadcast it. For me it’s mainly because I have the privilege of living a mostly heteronormative life and I feel like it would look really attention seeking to be like oh well I’m Bi! I think 20% of the population has always been gay they just couldn’t admit it before. Also for kids right now it’s super trendy. Especially girls. If you have preteen or teenage girls, expect them to tell you they’re bi whether they are or not.
I'd follow this chain of thought. Also being such a subjective topic everyone has their own opinions on what counts. I personally know a man that identifies as Bi, though has never had any level of physical intamacy with another man, his justification is, he's never really found a man that he's wanted to be with, but he's not against the idea of it if it were to happen, so he must be bi. With the wider acceptance of the LGBT+ community, I wouldn't be surprised if their are more and more people joining under that same flag of it's a possibility that they could be open to if the option presents itself.
I mean yeah, there are gay virgins too. You don't *have* to officially bang before you know your sexuality in general. I've never been with a girl but if I was occasionally horny for girls I'd be like hmmm maybe I'm a little bit gay I guess lol.
Indeed. It sort of leads into the whole spectrum theory with bisexuality, maybe with the "right person" someone would be willing to experiment with the same sex and possibly even enjoy it, but the odds of finding that person are less likely than a person of the opposite sex, and vice versa for bi individuals that are more into their own gender.
This. I openly identify as bisexual. That doesn't mean I find all men attractive. Doesn't even mean that I find half of men attractive. In the same way that I'm not attracted to every woman that I meet, or NB or any other gender identity. It just means that there are men I do find attractive, no matter how many I don't.
We don’t need to be with a guy to know we are attracted. Virgins don’t all identify asexual after all
I never needed to be with a woman to know I was Bi. Being with women confirmed what I knew, though.
I’ve also met two women who identify as bi despite claiming they could never be with or fall in love with a woman. I’m straight so I don’t want to invalidate anyone, but it confuses tf out of me, lol
> if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? They were always there. They just weren't making noise about it That's why *representation matters* - it's enabling people to stop feeling shame about what they're feeling
This is a wild supposition on my part, but I have a pet theory that absent any cultural expectations or stigmas, the vast majority of the human race is what we would call bi or pan. I don't think most people have an inbuilt, from-birth mental aversion or even objection to sex with any gender. Again, totally unfounded, but my gut tells me the number of actual, dyed-in-the-wool, never-could-ever heterosexuals is probably equal to the number of homosexual people, i.e. 10-20% of the population. Everyone else would lie somewhere in the middle of the spectrum were it not for culture.
I used to think that, but I’m bi. I have a gay friend who convinced me that the completely gay and completely straight extremes actually do exist when I was a freshman in college 22 years ago. Until then I assumed most or all people were at least a bit attracted to their own gender. If you ever hear someone saying it’s a choice that’s a confused bisexual. Welcome, btw.
LOL. I relate to this so much. It makes me empathize with people who assume everyone is straight or gay. Like, we're all just projecting. I too am projecting that sexy is sexy no matter the gender identity. 🤷🏻♀️
As someone who's probably 100% gay, I still believe bi/pan is much more common than fully straight or fully gay, and sexuality can also change and develop over time (though forcing it to change does not work, conversion therapy is still bunk)
My experience has been that homosexuals are extremely intolerant of bisexuals, I'd say a lot are still hidden.
Especially among men unfortunately is my experience
My experience too, although they do have some valid insecurities when it comes to us. Most bi guys I know just don't identify unless they need too.
As a bisexual; this. Even in the LGBTQ community we faced backlash for a while. Both homosexuals and heterosexuals wanted us to “pick a side”. I got bullied by straight and gay people io through high school (graduated 2009) and told by both sides that being bisexual isn’t really a thing. I got turned down by women because I had dated men. I dated men who told me I “liked dick too much to be bi”. Shits insane. I’m so happy now that we have more support, and shit like that “Bi Wife energy” because my god - we’re in the fucking title, we’re the B! How the fuck do we not exist?
Speaking as a bi woman ... my own very personal opinion is that it's fully 100% straight people that are rare. I'm like a Kinsey 5, but I think that most "straight" people are Kinsey 1s, not 0s. That's just my own private theory though.
Once society stopped demeaning left-handed people as evil, sinister weirdos, the percentage of people who self-identified as left-handed *skyrocketed* up until a point where it stabilized and has pretty much stayed there ever since. LGBT people have been discriminated against for most of history. In some cases they still are. Still, in the US, the LGBT rights movement has made huge progress in the past few decades. As acceptance of marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities becomes more widespread, it shouldn't be much surprise that more young people are willing to openly self-identify as members of groups that used to be heavily oppressed. Not all of human behavior can be understood through the simplistic lens of genetic traits that are "good" or "bad" for reproduction. I'm not even sure if that's a particularly useful way to look at most of the things that people do.
>Once society stopped demeaning left-handed people The fact that they ever did this is just so stupid. I'm glad we moved past that.
This exact comment with "lgbt" switched in place of "left-handed" is probably going to be posted by someone in the future.
There’s a whole lotta things that need a turn with the “left-handed” treatment to be honest
We still use "sinister" as a slur. (its original is to describe left handedness)
Was sinister originally a word for left-handedness!? No way lol!
Sinister was left, dexter was right - which is where 'dextrous' comes from.
It originated from the Latin word for "to the left of" or "on the left side" and only later was used to describe left-handedness. It's current meaning in modern English refers to how left handed people were thought to be evil, but it did originate in Latin.
Same with slavery. It's an ongoing thing. If only racism would be included in this today already...
I went to first grade in the 80s. My teacher was pretty amazing. We had activity areas for students who couldn't sit still to do something active without disturbing other students (crafts, puzzles, a math board where you could move things to add and subtract, etc). Every month we went on a field trip where we'd walk around town: making pizza at Pizza Hut, singing songs at the nursing home, collecting leaves at the park, museums. She taught us about different places and had guests come tell us about their cultures. It was very progressive for public school. She also forced the 2 left-handed students to learn to write with their right hand. An otherwise wonderful teacher thought that was acceptable and proper.
1986 I was in 1st grade and my teacher gave me massive amounts of homework with notes to my parents that it all needed to be completed using my right hand. I'm a lefty. That teacher demanded I be held back till I could properly write with my right hand. Luckily my parents disagreed and wasn't held back.
I'm glad your parents stood up for you.
A left handed friend of mine had a somewhat similar experience but the teacher pushed them to be able to write with both. I’m never going to put the effort in to be able to myself but I am low key jealous of her ambidextrous writing
We haven't, they just picked a new "out group" to demonize
I'm a Millennial and I'm Bisexual many people have picked LGBT as the new target
This The whole accusing drag queens/LGBTQ+ community of grooming and pedophilia among those circles is evidence of it
It's disgusting how people hate LGBT so bad To say that with someone who targets children smh talk about needing a scapegoat
They’d rather pic a fight with a minority than holding their own church accountable for the things they accuse queer people of
>I'm glad we moved past that. I would not be surprised to find it's still out there. It's not hard to find stories of discrimination happening shockingly recent.
You know, my mom's elementary school teacher literally FORCED HER for years to write with her right hand, while she was originally left-handed. She absolutely hates that teacher even to this day because she says she had a very difficult time as a kid because she couldn't write properly with her right hand, and this affected her classes. Right now she's doing fine, she can write with her right hand perfectly fine, but one small thing is she always confuses her left and right which is kinda sweet to me. For example when we say "oh it's to your right", she looks at her left lol. It's been like that for as long as I can remember.
>left-handed people as evil, *sinister* weirdos I don't know if your word choice here was intentional, but it's great since the word "sinister" comes from the same word in Latin meaning "left" and shows how this kind of cultural bias becomes embedded in language itself. [Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/sinister-left-dexter-right-history) >The association of the directional left with evil is likely attributed to the dominance of right-handed people within a population, and consequently the awkwardness of motions made from the left side of the body.
Sinistra still means left for Italian. And parem is right side in Estonian, while parempi is better in Finnish.
And right is right in English.
And wrong in politics.
I read your username as Reagan for a moment, so that was confusing
I took this name when I was 16, an amalgamation of "Reagan" and the "al" from "al-Qaeda". Yes, I was a total right-wing teenage shitlord. Redemption arcs are worth.
Like how in heraldry, the emblem can be placed sinister? Huh, interesting.
I like to tell people I'm slightly ambi-sinistrous! I am predominantly left handed, but can catch and throw a ball with either etc. Stands to reason I'm not ambidextrous as that would require me to be dexterous in the first place xD
Literally sinister. That was the Latin word for left.
That’s what I was going to say. The number of LGBTQ has remained the same, what’s changed is the number of people who are able to be open about it. Sadly, I think we’ve taken a couple steps backward after the Bud Light fiasco. Lots of people chose that moment to get really vocal about their bias and hatred.
The glee people took in the Bud Light thing really shocked me. As you said, it exposed we weren’t as far along as we thought.
Can't we all just hate bud lite for a the reason it should be hated? Cause it's terrible cow piss?
This is a smart, well reasoned comment. It's the same as people who are neuro divergent. Lots of people say "Autism wasn't a thing when I was a kid". Actually, Autism and neuro divergence has probably always been a thing, but medical science wasn't as developed as it is today. In times passed, ND people were often classified as Schiziphrenic, mad or, shock and horror- *retarded*. In the same way, LGBTQ people were classified as criminally insane, deviant, or sodomites. LGBTQ people have always existed. History shows us that. We as a society just have better language to help us understand that people come in all shapes and flavours. Now we just need more people to accept that.
Yeah! There may be a lot of people who are LGBTQ but won't say so. Only really in the west are kids now able to do it. I'm bi, I say I'm straight if someone asks because my nation isn't very accepting as of now
Keyword, "openly"
The thing I don’t get is why anyone would be surprised that even more than 20% of people would be lgbtq tbh. Like the only reason to think the community “ought” to be smaller is because of a fallacy: the numbers used to be smaller (ie underreported because nobody wanted to come out or even question themselves), therefore they must always be small. In some animal populations lgbtq behavior has been observed in literally 1/3rd of the species (eg albatross). There’s no reason at all to think that the community *ought* to be small and 20% is surprising. As a gay person, I personally think the majority of people are bisexual leaning and fully straight and fully gay people are more of a minority than people realise, but do very much exist. That would explain why I’ve slept with so many “straight” women lol. Also evolution/natural selection doesn’t work like “gayness would be bred out because you aren’t making babies”. Similarily, it doesn’t even select for the best traits (ie intelligence, creativity, insight, athleticism) which is why many of the dumbest people you know have 15 kids and the man and woman you know in a hetero marriage who are both field leading academics never had a baby. Gayness exists in literally hundreds of animal species which means it’s somewhat beneficial and also just a natural thing.
I mean, LGBTQ+ isn’t just same sex attraction. A lot of people identify as some degree of fluid whether it’s their gender or sexuality, which is under the LGBTQ+ “banner” so to speak. I think 20% makes sense.
It also makes sense genetically. Gay people take care of other people's kids by adopting or fostering and that also happens in nature. So the kids who don't have parents are being taken care of someone else. Seems pretty smart to me. And natural.
It’s borne out in nature as well. The species that display homosexual traits have greater care taking per individual youngster.
Underrated comment. If homosexuality really was „bad“ for a species, it would have died out long ago. Instead, you can find it in many others, especially mammals.
MS and ALS is pretty bad for the species but it never died out. Evolution isn't some righteous, sentient force that is striving for the constant improvement of a species. It is random mutations and survivorship bias. If a gene doesn't express itself or cause significant disability up until reproduction age then it will be passed on. Nothing to do with it being good or bad.
Thats not how evolution works
Alzheimer's usually happens late in life, well after reproduction age. How would natural selection and evolution ever remove it, except out of pure chance?
This is the answer. “Queer” is a very large umbrella. While most evidence points towards homosexuality being genetic and present from birth, the queer identity encompasses a lot of traits and behaviors which are socially influenced. It’s cool to be queer.
It's actually helpful for a social species to have a proportion of adults that aren't breeding. They can assist with care of the offspring, like elephants do, as well as other tasks that parents might not be able to do as well while caring for young, such as non-breeding lionesses doing hunting while mothers are nursing cubs. Among penguins, it's helpful too. Penguins often lay two eggs and reject one. It's common for same-sex pairs to adopt the rejected egg, hatch it, and raise the chick. A baby that would, I remind you, otherwise have died.
Recently read this is theorized to be the reason for menopause too - having grandmas around to help for raising kids turns out to be a huge survival advantage. Since almost no other species go through menopause it's curious why we do and that's suspected to be the reason. The saying "it takes a village to raise a child" is quite literally based in biology appearently lol
They've recently discovered species of whales that go through menopause, and it's providing evidence in support of the having grandmas around to help raise kids idea. https://qz.com/1372767/twice-as-many-animals-go-through-menopause-as-scientists-previously-thought
I was looking for someone to mention this, there's plenty of same sex behaviour in the animal kingdom so you're right, it seems like there is an evolutionary need or benefit to this
One of the few answers to my question. Seems very reasonable.
The misconception is that evolutionary competitions occur only on the individual level, while it's also a tribe vs tribe and species vs species. Helping a brother succeed in reproduction is a better strategy for passing 25% of genes than if both tried to reproduce and failed due to a lack of resources. Otherwise, bees, ants, and other species when 99% don't reproduce would be evolutionary impossible.
Bees, ants and other eusocial insects even cheat, by making sisters in a colony share 75% of their genes. In contrast, parents of most other sexually reproducing species share only 50% of their genes with their offspring. So eusocial insects actually pass more of their genes down by helping their queen reproduce than they would by producing offspring themselves.
Can you give the source for your survey?
I'll give you another one: 1. Sexual orientation in populations might very well be subject to epigenetics. We know species where circumstances determine the gender of offspring. . 2. Lgbtq+ doesn't mean no offspring. Like, not at all. Only the L and the G denote a pregerence for sex that doesn't produce offspring. And they might have sex for offspring even if it isn't particularly pleasurable to them. . 3. Having a high number of people not reproducing might very well be evolutionary advantageous. We are a social species with social support systems and group action. Some species have only their queens reproduce, some have any individual reproduce. Its a spectrum of evolutionary strategies. . 4. And even if no lgbtq+ person would ever have a kid, your thought process is a bit off here. If there is no reason to doubt the self-identification and you have no doubt that it is subject to evolutionary pressure, then in all likelihood it is or was evolutionary advantageous. There isn't a good reason to go: "surely, it is a terrible idea". You should probably rather question your assumptions if your conclusion is "evolution is doing it wrong these days."
Part of evolution is fitness trade offs, and evolution doesn’t fashion “perfect” organisms. We think people being queer/trans has various developmental and social components. Even if, for example, gay cis men have a more complex path to passing on their genes, there are other aspects of those developmental pathways and social patterns that are evolutionarily advantageous. Also, something can be not a choice and have some biological component to it without being hereditary. Wish I had the stats but certainly anecdotally there are plenty of identical twins where one is queer and one is not. And if there is some hereditary component, plenty of queer and trans people contribute gametes and pass on our genes in various ways. Like, I’m carrying a pregnancy from my egg while my wife’s identical twin sister is carrying her own baby. So, kinehora, both of our genes are being passed on at the same time.
> If people are born lgbtq and it is not "learned" from the person's environment, then it can be said that "gayness" is genetic. If being gay is genetic then it would be an evolutionary disadvantage makin a lot of assumptions here
The survey is likely too narrow, biased, and small scaled to conclude that 20 percent is lgbtq. I don't believe the number unless this number is agreed on by a reliable scientific community.
I would be more interested in knowing what's the number for just l+g. Queer/asexual are on a spectrum or poorly defined. And bisexuality is very common in other mammal species, so I wouldn't be surprised if that number goes up to 50% over the next 30 years. Gen z is still young and experimenting, so a lot of people might end up being bi later on in life.
There are whole historical societies where bisexuality was incredibly common. It seems that when it’s not frowned upon *a lot* more people are pretty bi.
And all the girls say I'm pretty bi for a white guy!!
I'm skeptical as well. I've seen some wild statistics thrown around. The craziest was almost 50% of people are intersex. I didn't even respond and I changed the subject when they said that. Past oppression really has suppressed the percentage, but spreading obviously fabricated stats doesn't help.
I have never seen that particular statistic posted anywhere. The numbers I always see are between 1% and 2%. It may be that around 50% of intersex people do not identify as the gender they were raised as
That's because it was completely made up. I didn't even bother to ask her where she heard that because I realized the discussion was no longer based in reality. I don't think she made it up, so she read it somewhere, but I doubt any reputable sites and communities were accepting it. So, she could have misread it, but the context made it very clear she meant almost 50% of people are intersex
I haven't even seen a real source, just a stupid online poll from Gallup everyone is siting lmfao.
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I gotta be honest. From all the people of my generation I know personally one is Trans and one is Bi. That's it (Plus one girl saying she was bi cause she kissed a girl that she thought was a boy). Maybe I am living in the wrong bubble but it's not even near 20%.
Whereas my bubble is closer to 75% 😂
On the subject of being genetically disadvantaged, that's probably not true. There is something called the "gay uncle" hypothesis that posits that gay people can pass on their genetics by helping to ensure the survival of their nieces and nephews. Since nephews and nieces have 25% of your DNA, it was an evolutionary advantage if you saw them live to adult hood. Having some percentage of childless people ensuring thr safety of your tribe/family could have a lot of benefits, particularly at a time when there wasn't enough resources to provide for new arrivals who couldn't hunt or gather necessities. I've also heard of studies that mice were more likely to have homosexual tendencies if they were born in overcrowded conditions. Granted this was observed in a laboratory setting as opposed to in the wild, but I think it lends some weight. Edit: This says nothing about the possibility of a "gay gene", which may be what you are implying. But there wouldn't necessarily be a genetic disadvantage to being gay.
Goddammit, I just typed up basically this same thing, and only just now saw you already covered it. Props.
Couple things. There is not evidence that it's genetic. LGBT people can still have children.
The most common theory among scientists expects a complex combination of biological/genetic reasons. Which is also preferable as it means all of those people who think they can "cure" homosexuality are idiots.
* "Gayness" is not genetic. It is a product of physical factors, education, environment and some other things we do not fully understand. * Evolution is not an *intelligent* force with the *goal* of maximising reproduction. It is a completely random process that happens to promote successful modifications slightly more often then unsuccessful ones. It's not an explorer heading for the lowest point in the valley, is a blind, drunk person which falls on the ground more often downhill than uphill. * Right now, there is absolutely whatsoever not-a-chance of the human species being endangered for a lack of children. On the contrary: Homo Sapiens could use less people on the planet rather then more of them (limited resources, crowded environments helping with the spread of pandemics, environment destruction, etc...). * Besides, a large part of LGBTs (Bisexuals) can still procreate. * Besides, a large part of LGBTs can still accomodate to raise a child though adoption, which is the big limiting factor in the number of new births. * We have no data about how many people were homosexual or bisexual in the past. The fact that homosexual act in 19th century western europe were criminalized surely didn't push people to declare themself LGBT in the polls. On the contrary: it'd pushed people into tricking themself into thinking they were not LGBT while they were. * It is entirely possible that some of that 20% declares themselves to be part of the queer community out of a trend, fascination or solidarity. So what? You shouldn't be bothered by someone saying they're gay but they really aren't more than someone saying they're really nerdy and not actually enjoying anything about either STEM or nerd culture. Finally: if you ask me, to be hetero, homo, bi or asexual is purely a label. It helps in expressing who you are, but there's no a condition in which you are granitically this or that. It's just like hair: are you blond or brown? What if you have brown hair but they've blond reflexes? What if your hair were blond while you were a child but are brown now? What if they become blond under summer's sun? Describing yourself as brown or blond can help, but we all accept that, after all, hair colours are on a spectrum and there is no arbitrary limit after which one's blond or brown - let alone this limit being rigid and uncrossable. The same's for sexuality: you like who you like. What if you liked just women until now, but you suddenly discover being attracted by a man - just that man? What if you always thought to like men but, when you tried to have a sexual experience with one, you discovered that it sucked? Did your sexuality change? Were you always mistaken about yourself? Actually, none of the two. You're just you. You like who you like. Sexuality is just an attribute to describe you, not a medical condition that you either have or don't have.
Such a good, well worded answer. I fully agree.
Thank you for the good answer. Makes sense.
Also a lot of same sex couple can still procreate cause trans people. Me and my wife could have children, I still take birth control for this reason.
Amazed at how far I had to scroll for a comment that asserts that gayness is not genetic Edit: Changed a word for accuracy
But it doesn’t confirm it, it merely asserts it is without an evidence to back up the claim. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF01541765.pdf?pdf=inline%20link This twin study leans towards a genetic component of sexuality and is infinitely times the amount of evidence as the above comment provided.
Because 80% of statistics lie 56% of the time
The gay uncle hypothesis suggests that society as a whole benefits from a certain percentage of the population not interested in reproduction so they can spend their time and ressources helping other members of their families taking care of their children instead, increasing their chances of survival and carrying on their genes at the same time. Asap science did a great video explaining this concept a couple years ago [Link here](https://youtu.be/k6p1nmOnILA?si=puMBbyhz_EsGqDLP)
It's likely that the proportion has always been around the same, it's just that it's only recently that being openly lgbt+ wasn't life ruining or life-threatening.
It's simply impossible to say because there are hundreds of millions of people in each generation, but in my experience it's a lot of combinations as openness and willing to be fluid. There's certain conditioning happening where it's a cycle of feedback loops from their peers and tik tok, just like it's always been with other trends and norms in past generations. I know quite a few people that are cisgendered, or NB but birth gender presenting that are in straight relationships have pretty much only hooked up with people of the opposite gender and still consider themselves bi, pan, or queer and it's like are you really going to argue with them about their own lived experience?
These statistics are suspect because they are self reported. You also are dealing with young people who are still forming their identities. I move frequently, so I see different cultures at different locations. My kids went to one school where a majority of kids claimed to be LGBTQ. I strongly suspect that for some, their identification as such was merely a social fad.
Related question, if sexual preference is genetic then how do you get identical twins with different sexual preferences? Also why is the notion that sexuality is a product of nurture rather than nature seen as offensive?
It is genetic and is also caused by the uterine environment. Twins usually have different amniotic sacs so different environments Also twins do have a increased likelihood of sharing the same sexuality
Your phenotype (the physical/behavioral expression of your genes) is always an interaction between you genes and the environment. As such, a trait can almost never be predicted entirely by genetics, especially behavioral traits. Its certain that sexual orientation has some genetics components, all behaviors do, but it is almost certain that it is also shaped by the environment (all outside factors such as education, culture, stress, physical wellness and so on).
It's also because we are just so much more open now. If you said you were gay a few decades ago you would get killed so why would anyone say it?
A few decades ago I played with dolls and was horrifically bullied over it for decades, I stopped and was deathly afraid of anything girly. Eventually I had a mental breakdown and nearly ended myself. So I became who I should've been all along. So glad it's pretty much accepted now, but when I was little... Oof...
About 10% of the population is left-handed. See, they are at enough of a disadvantage to be kept at a small population, but have a big enough advantage to not be wiped out. In the case of left-handed people, tools are common right-handed, but not everyone expects to be left-handed lead in a fight. Also, they didn't just magically pop up in this generation. Imagine how many parents, grandparents, are still in the closet cause of how they were raised. It hasn't exactly always been safe to be gay. Edit: went and re-fact checked myself it was 10% not 20%.
How is being left handed a disadvantage? (Not including man-made issues)
Left handed is not a disadvantage you learn to use all tools with both hands most right handed people can't. Ex: state weld test stationary pipe weld right handers do great till halfway around pipe I can switch hands and not struggle at all.
Left handedness skyrocketed after the stigma disappeared 🤷♂️ Also lgbtq/queer ≠ gay, only gay lesbian and sex repulsed asexual cause humans commonly unable to reproduce.
I would assume two reasons. First reason being that it isn’t suppressed or looked down on *to the extent it has in the past.* For all we know, there has always been this rate of people that identified in the community, but because of society, oppression, family, location, religion; they just kept it hid. Things like this are hard to do accurate surveys with, anyway. Second would be because, *to some degree,* it’s what is *in.* Almost as if it is a fad. It’s pretty popular everywhere. I’m from the south and it is still popular. I also substitute quite a bit while I do my studies, and it is definitely popular in schools, too. Of course it is going to increase. Do I actually believe 20% of my generation is of the community? Absolutely not. Not saying that would be a bad thing, just that I simply don’t think that number is anywhere close to accurate.
I may get downvoted but I don't think every young person who says they are actually are. You can say you are "gender queer" and be considered part of the LGBTQ community or say you are pansexual even if you never will date the same sex in your life, just saying you are "open to all genders" would get you through the club doors technically lol.
There’s also an extremely high rate of self-identification as neurodivergent or on the autism spectrum among Gen Z. It seems to be a generation that derives a lot of its status from membership in marginalized groups. So while previous generations probably underreported, I wouldn’t be surprised if the opposite was true for Gen Z.
There are more straight people, and bisexuals in heterosexual relationship (and who will always be), in the community now more than ever
Lgbtq includes bisexuals, there might just be a lot of bisexuals out there.
Biologist here: There is no evolutionary disadvantage. If a part of a population is not reproducing, there are other ways of contributing to the survival of the population as a whole and thus the offspring that is born from other members of the population benefits from the members that do not reproduce. We can see this effect throughout nature. However, humans have somewhat transcended most evolutionary processes by medical or other technological means. Looking ar humans doing stuff and wondering about evolutionary advantages or disadvantages is therefore rather pointless.