Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are

Is that accurate?

 

remeber, it is hard to get a accurate number because social stigma keeps so many people in the closet about who they are.

 

I agree, survey isn't the best way to get "accurate" research results. :dry: It's easy for people to lie, even if the survey is supposed to be anonymous. Even in my school survey, I almost didn't put that my last relationship was female x female because I felt it was too risky. =.=

 

I put little to no store by these surveys. I'm not sure the percentage of homosexual people is up to 30% like people guess, but it's almost certainly higher than this survey suggests.

 

A whole THIRD thought that more than 25% of people were queer? Jesus christ... it would be nice, but can anyone seriously be that stupid. I'm going to have to assume they just don't know how maths works, because they certainly can't think that every fourth person they know is gay.

 

that can't be right. i read somewhere that it was more like one in ten are lesbian, gay, or bi. so how can it be that 1 in 4 (as ridiculous prev. stated) are gay? That doesn't add up at all!

 

That's the whole point of the survey. It's showing that most Americans tend to overestimate the queer people in their midst by several factors.

 

I can almost guarantee that they don't actually think 25% of the population is gay. If you reworded it and asked them if every fourth person was gay, they'd say no. It's highlighting an inability to relate the mathematical concept of percentages to real life.

 

Come on - the people answering these surveys are the ones that see someone walking towards them with a clipboard and think "oh, a clipboard, must go and answer their survey / sign up to the monthly direct debit for a charity I don't care about" rather than the majority that run away.... (ISTR reading that in one of these surveys 25% said they never answer these surveys :bang: )

 

I certainly think an estimate of less than 5% is rather low. I think there have to be many more who can't admit it (to others or even themselves - such as I was) or who don't realize it. I've seen a few of those.

 

Chances are that the percentage will always be slightly higher than what the survey says, mostly because a gay person may lie and say they're straight but a straight person has to be pretty stupid to lie and say they're gay, so this survey can't possibly be correct. And besides, less than 2% sounds like a pretty bad estimate -- that's less than 1 in every 50 people. Also, 25% (as I see some people thought) would be 1 in 4, which seems like it's way off also. My guess would be that it's somewhere between 5% and 15%, it just seems most realistic. I can't believe some people thought one in every four people though were gay... either that or they can't do math.

I'm pretty much just rambling on now, I'll stop here. :icon_redf

 

Well, its a good thing that so many people think there are so many gay people. But, I think the actual number is way less than 10 percent. I think a lot of gay people secretly hope that homosexuality is so common (1 in 10 is pretty common) but from personal experience it must be much lower than that. Sure people hide it ect, but just think about the high school you went to, how many gay people did you know that were in your class? I am sure it was much lower than 10 percent in most cases. That percentage will probably change by your reunion but I would be surprised if there were so many closeted people as to shift the balance all that much. I think its closer to 5% or less.

 

Class at high school
3 out of 25 - i.e. 12%
My office at Work
3 out of 23 - i.e. 13% - over the last few years it's floated between 5 and 20%.

Then again both of these have had atypical proportions - both have been about 65% female but no lesbians (that I know of).

Of the four people I have considered best friends over the years two are gay - i.e. 50% - but I knew of neither at the time, they both came out after we had gone our separate ways and went to uni.

Every group I look at seams to have had around 8 - 15% of people who are gay so I would say the 10% is a fair estimate.

 

The majority of gay people who came out in my class would have waited until AFTER High School to do it, and the rest may have kept it quiet (I.E. only a few close friends might know if anyone). That would make the actual percentage seem quite low in my age group - a sign of society's values at that time.

Nowadays, it seems almost every second high school student I encounter, (and I encounter quite a few), has friends who are either gay, bi, or lesbian. Some of them turn out to BE gay or bi, (which tends to blow me away if they passed through my classroom and I didn't suspect.) Don't know any who've said they have trans friends, but I've seen a couple trans students firsthand and they MUST have friends. 10% seems like a fairly accurate number from where I'm sitting.

 

I'm guessing it's more like 10-15% of the population is gay, lesbian, bi, trans, pan etc.

 

I honestly believe the oft-cited 10% figure is a bit low. Might be more in the 15% range.

 

for some reason, I always felt that 12-15% is a good range. it could even be considerably higher when you put a sharper focus on bisexuality, because who is to say every bisexual person acknowledges their attraction to both genders? It could be that alot of people who one would consider to be straight are bisexuals who are perfectly happy in their relationships with people of the opposate gender?

 

How's this for statistics? I had two really close friends through grade school. A double handful of semi-friends, but two "best" friends. We met in elementary school entirely by chance (I actually broke a textbook over one's head because he tried to kiss my hand).

None of us are straight. One's bi, one's gay (the guy who tried to kiss me >.> ), and I'm trans and possibly bi/pan. So... 3/3=100%? XD

On a different note, there were a couple of guys 'reputed' to be gay, and I knew of one who did identify as bi (but, in retrospect with more education, is more likely trans), but no one other than that one guy who was actually out in high school.

This was a school of over two thousand students. Statistics? Impossible to determine accurately because of the extreme, if subtle, social stigma involved. Being rainbow was just not done in that town.

 

It's not 25% obviously, but I don't know if/when we'll ever get an accurate number...