51–60 of 109 posts
I don't mind gays or lesbians. I do wonder where all this stuff comes from if it's such a small part of the population though. The transexual population is even smaller. How exactly does a bill become a law in the context of some cause is now the next civil rights crusade? It's not like these people have big enough numbers to get their interests on the agenda as a genuine democratic interest group that a politician w…
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Eh, it's clear priming didn't have too much of an effect here. The single most selected answer in every year was >25%. Respondents thought the number was too low to begin with.
There are a lot of sources of sloppiness here, though. The question is sloppy relative to the definitions. They asked "Just your best guess, what percent of Americans today would you say are gay or lesbian?", but the measuring stick is what portion of people identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. I would be a little surprised if people use exactly the same framework to decide if someone else is gay as th…
This assumes that homosexuality is evenly distributed across age groups, something that is directly contradicted by the data. Your bias makes you think that this is caused by unacceptability of identification, but you would need to show that the change in acceptability has only affected younger generations.
As a counter-example, people who have worn LA lights sneakers are disproportionately under 30. It has become culturally acceptable to wear LA Lights sneakers over the last 15 years, perhaps older people are under-reporting their wearing of the sneakers?
> "How many Americans have ever cheated on a test?" and asking another set "Have you ever cheated on a test?" and then publishing an article about how "Americans Greatly Overestimate How Many Americans Have Cheated on a Test"
This metaphor seems directly contradicted by: > the change in the acceptability of identifying as LGBT over the last 70 years is pretty profound,
The change in ever cheating on a test over the last 70 years does not seem pretty profound to me.
It's clear that your personal bias is that there is an iceberg of non-identifying homosexuals who still feel oppressed. Even in SF, the number barely reaches 15% [1]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_Unite...
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4.5% self-report as LGBT. That's an important distinction to make, and I too would be surprised if it's accurate.
It's risen by 1 percentage point since 2012 when they started tracking this, and for millennials, the number is around 8.2%. They don't seem to have data for zoomers yet. [1] This would suggest (imo) that 4.5% is in fact a significant underestimate, but I don't know necessarily that it's as far off as 20% [1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-population...
4.5% is about 1 in 22. 8.2% is 1 in 12. Even accounting for the fact that most LGBT people are as private about their sexuality as straight people are, its often enough that you're likely to encounter LGBT people on a frequent basis.
I would have guess it was around 10%, because I’ve read that number from several sources before, so 4.5% is a surprise. Today I also learned that the 10% number I’d read has been pretty controversial in the past. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/05/10-per-cent-...
Looking at Wikipedia’s article, higher numbers among youth globally seem to be a common trend. I would expect it’s not the population changing, but the stigma being shed. I wonder if it will take a few more decades before the numbers stabilize enough to be trustworthy...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orien...
The media skews everything. Almost every TV show has a homosexual character, a black computer programmer, and an ass-kicking female martial arts expert. Hollywood has to parade its ideals, after all. And to some extent, it's showing you how urban sophisticates view their own world, amplifying the same skew. I remember some really old poll from a NYC high school (decades ago) in which the students estimated the Jewish…
I don't mind gays or lesbians. I do wonder where all this stuff comes from if it's such a small part of the population though. The transexual population is even smaller. How exactly does a bill become a law in the context of some cause is now the next civil rights crusade? It's not like these people have big enough numbers to get their interests on the agenda as a genuine democratic interest group that a politician w…
How does a small group get politicians to pass laws to help them? It's pretty simple: some people care about people who aren't them.
I'm pretty plain vanilla as far as my orientation and family life goes, but I would never vote for a politician who advocated for any position other than full equality for LGBTQ folks.
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> LGBTQ in the American mind share far outsizes their population What does that even mean? Population is one thing, but can mindshare be measured? You're comparing apples and oranges.
Well, what other groups make up 5% of the population and get corporate logos changed in recognition of that group? About 5% of Americans watched the NBA finals, did brands go out of their way to make NBA fans feel included? Do news shows bring on their NBA correspondent to talk about NBA issues?
I don't mind gays or lesbians. I do wonder where all this stuff comes from if it's such a small part of the population though. The transexual population is even smaller. How exactly does a bill become a law in the context of some cause is now the next civil rights crusade? It's not like these people have big enough numbers to get their interests on the agenda as a genuine democratic interest group that a politician w…
4.5% of 301 million is about 13.5 million - and that's just people who would self-identify as LGBT in spite of it still being a problematic thing to admit to (we even have a word for it: coming out). Elections are decided by much, much, much smaller numbers than that.
(In comparison: that's more than the entire population of Pennsylvania).
PS: I certainly would be uncomfortable identifying as a Jew in an environment where people merely "don't mind all the jews and hebrews, but do wonder what's up with all the stuff". Just put in that framework to see what's wrong with your question.
Is it possible that what you're seeing in this data is less about inaccuracy and more about how comfortably out people are? It says the estimates skew greater for younger people and women responding. Well are younger people and women more likely to know which of their friends are LGBT, because of a host of societal reasons that tend to influence men or older folks to wall off their feelings and communicate less about…
If your an urbanite you have a huge observational bias simply if you accept that rural homosexuals are more likely to migrate to the city. Reason for the migration include less discrimination, but also higher concentration (making hooking up easier). Therefore your perceived rate of homosexuality would be grater. For what it’s worth the self reported rate of 5 percent is the same when I first cared to look it up, abo…
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Corporations are cashing in on the trend This is true. But it's also true that companies are afraid of being "corp-shamed" on the internet. No marketing or PR department wants to answer the question, "Why don't you support xyz!" on the internet. Steve Jobs didn't have a Reality Distortion Field half as powerful as Twitter.
I don't have any issue with companies taking no stand, so long as they don't have negative impact on the LGBT community through political contributions. Do people genuinely _expect_ Apple, et. al. to proactively support LGBT rights? I think it's asking a bit much, but also, I'm no marketing expert. I get that people want to associate with brands that they feel can 'get them'. And brands can freely choose what they id…