Percentage of gays

[mandarof]

I have heard a lot of different reports of how many people are gay. The last, and supposedly most accurate number, I heard it was around 10%. But, I can't understand how arriving at a number is even possible. Do they take samples and then test them to make sure? What about Census data? I read that extrapolated data suggests 4 million gays in the US, which is more than 10% (4 / 307) - 13%

And if Census suggests that--assuming that doesn't included closeted--then where are the closeted estimates? It is shocking how easy it is to find relationships on the DL (down low) and people who get their gay fill while in a straight relationship. What do others think about this? Is it possible the number is quite a bit higher but so many people are hiding it?

I've read questions about if we are all gay. I don't think this is true but it would be funny if everyone was but we were all covering it up because it's wrong. Obviously that would potentially lead to extinction.

What percentage of the US is gay and public? What percentage is closeted? How are these numbers even remotely "accurate" given closeted people, by definition, should not even report that.

[alan t]

4 / 307 is 1.3% not 13%

[maverick]

I don't think because of the "closet" issue that the number of gay people can be accurately measured. Only the number of self-identifying gay people can be measured, and a lot of gay people are not self-identifying as such for one reason or another. However, social change has caused there to be a lot more visibility though.

I tend to believe in the Kinsey scale myself - almost everyone is at least a little gay, but not everyone feels the need to express it or claims it as their primary form of sexual expression.

[mandarof]

lol on percentage error.

I just wonder how many people are really plenty gay to be considered that but repress those feelings to remain "normal." Consider all those that come out--they repressed their feelings but could for only so long. Or hid them.

In other words, if more of these people came out, we would probably all be just as shocked? I mean we see time and time again people coming out and then respond with "we thought so." Now imagine that person except he or she got into a relationship fast and early so, through marriage, they are bound together and locked into their normal lifestyle. Very interesting...

[peaceandlies]

Well, surveys can be anonomous. That way, people who are closeted, but out to themselves can tell the truth

[Lexington]

The last figures I heard put the actual gay/bi figure at roughly 7%. An additional 12% had gay/bi thoughts or experiences in the past ("experimenting") but considered themselves straight.

I know one guy who swears the figure is at least 60%. He thinks EVERYBODY is gay.

Lex

[Pseudojim]

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/10...7-lesbian.html

[Holmes]

Originally Posted by maverick

I tend to believe in the Kinsey scale myself - almost everyone is at least a little gay, but not everyone feels the need to express it or claims it as their primary form of sexual expression.

The distribution along the Kinsey isn't even. As far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think most people are at 0, i.e. exclusively heterosexual. He did show that it's not just binary, that there's a scale of bisexuality between 0 and the 6 of exclusively homosexual.

I think Lex's 7% and then 12% make sense to me. I don't think most people are a little bit bi, to be honest. I find it strange that the idea that most people are a little bit bi often comes up as some sort of justification. Left-handers never tried to claim that most people are little bit ambidextrous.

[Nitro]

In the 9th ed Myers the figure is given as 3 to 4 percent of men and 1 or 2 percent of women as being exclusively homosexual (based on european and american data collected during the 1990s - anonymity protected). Fewer than one percent report being bisexual.

The more generous figures come partly from different attempts to capture what it means for a person to be any particular part of the queer alphabet soup. If one includes all those who have had one time experiments, or occasional fantasies the number will surely be higher, while if only considering those who identify during an anonymity assured survey as gay, the number will be smaller. An interesting area of research comes into how and why Americans, (USA citizens get nearly all the academic attention), tend to give the estimates of various minority populations that they do - grossly over estimating the percentage of black, hispanic, and jewish populations in their country. Likewise with gays and lesbians, a 2002 Gallup poll found Americans estimated a little over 20% of the population to be homosexual. In "Numeracy About Minority Populations: Americans’ Estimations of Local Gay Population Size" Overby and Barth find that USA citizens more accurately estimated the size of the gay population in their local community. When it comes to statistical innumeracy (nice little buzz term) a word from "Homophobic Innumeracy? Estimating the Size of the Gay and Lesbian Population"

Prior research suggests that such inflation is largely the product of three forces: low levels of political knowledge, a misreading of environmental cues, and perceived threat.

I would add the conjecture that in the case of GLB folks giving numbers and stats (to the best of my knowledge the statistical numeracy this group not having been studied) we would give as high a figure as we could get away with, and tending towards easy to remember fractions. Just as might does not make right, a population size should not be the test by which rights are granted - but only in a fantasy democracy is that the case.

My point: numbers aren't well established, in a number of contexts should not matter, and whatever figure you use, you may need to defend it with a source and/or some knowledge of methodology.

[Mogget]

The 10% figure comes from the Kinsey Report, a huge-scale survey on sexual behavior. It didn't say 10% of the population was gay, but rather that 10% had engaged in same-sex sexual behavior. And even that figure is artificially high due to the populations surveyed.

[Lexington]

>>>Left-handers never tried to claim that most people are little bit ambidextrous.

Kind of a bad example, simply because the vast majority of people (85% or so) are what's considered "strongly right-handed". They do most tasks with their right hand, but they can and do use their left hand for certain tasks. There are very small percentages that are considered "exclusively right-handed" (and left handed) who use their dominant hand for all activities, and find it nearly impossible to perform any task with the non-dominant hand. As such, most right-handers ARE "somewhat left-handed".

Lex

[Holmes]

Originally Posted by Lexington

>>>Left-handers never tried to claim that most people are little bit ambidextrous.

Kind of a bad example, simply because the vast majority of people (85% or so) are what's considered "strongly right-handed". They do most tasks with their right hand, but they can and do use their left hand for certain tasks. There are very small percentages that are considered "exclusively right-handed" (and left handed) who use their dominant hand for all activities, and find it nearly impossible to perform any task with the non-dominant hand. As such, most right-handers ARE "somewhat left-handed".

Lex

Point taken, but what I was really getting at is that I often here people say, "Everyone's a little bit bisexual", as if the percentage makes a difference, or that the presence of a lot of mostly straight people who have the odd gay thought strengthens the case for equality. We know the effective percentage is something like 15%, but were it 1.5% or 60% the same civil rights argument would apply.