Science > Abortion > Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual?
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Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"J Young" |
| Date: |
09 Dec 2007 10:43:07 PM |
| Object: |
Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? |
I demand a recount
Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? A UCLA senior
research fellow says it makes all the difference.
By Gary J. Gates
December 7, 2007
In his retort to a Gregory Rodriguez column focusing on my work, Don
Kilhefner highlights the tension between the precepts of the gay liberation
movement and what he would call an assimilationist perspective. He raises
important issues and presents some of the political and social challenges
facing today's gay community.
Unfortunately, in his self-described masochistic reading of my paper, he
didn't put himself through quite enough pain and missed some important
facts. As a result, his comments include several questionable assertions,
the most egregious of which is that 8% to 10% of the population of the
United States is gay. There is just no credible scientific evidence to
support such a statement. The best data that we have in this regard (which I
clearly cite in my report) show that only about half that many people (about
4%) are willing to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) on surveys.
That's 8.8 million Americans, not his 27 million figure. By the way, even if
the 9% figure he cites is correct, he resorts to fuzzy math by counting
children. There are about 210 million adults in this country. If 9% of them
are gay, that's about 19 million.
Further, of the 8.8 million Americans who identify as LGB, nearly half
identify as bisexual, most of whom surveys show are not living with a
same-sex partner. That means there are about 4.4 million Americans who call
themselves gay or lesbian, of whom about 1.6 million, or more than 36%, are
living with a same-sex partner. That's a far cry from his assertion that
Census data only capture about 6% of the gay population.
Kilhefner also articulates an erroneous stereotype - that relatively few gay
men are partnered. A recent survey of the LGB population of California
conducted by the state Department of Health found that, in fact, more than
half of gay men reported having a partner as did two-thirds of lesbians.
I am neither a historian nor a queer theorist, so I do not consider myself
qualified to critique the merits of liberation versus assimilationist
theories about gay life and culture. But as a demographer, I can say with
great confidence that the visible gay community, coupled and otherwise, is
changing. As more LGB people come out, they increase the geographic,
racial-ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the visible LGB community. They
look, at least demographically, more and more like the general population in
this country. Now I don't think that necessarily presages an end to "gay
culture" as some have begun to lament, but it does challenge us to rethink
our understanding of what exactly being LGB means in our society today.
Gary J. Gates, PhD, is a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute,
UCLA School of Law and the author of "The Gay and Lesbian Atlas."
--
J Young
jyoungvisions@aol.com
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? |
10 Dec 2007 12:50:39 AM |
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On 10 d=E9c, 05:43, "J Young" <jyoungvisi...@aol.com> wrote:
I demand a recount
Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? A UCLA senio=
r
research fellow says it makes all the difference.
By Gary J. Gates
December 7, 2007
Get out of the closet, J Young. Now.
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? |
10 Dec 2007 09:35:46 AM |
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On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:50:39 -0800, parsifal222 wrote:
On 10 déc, 05:43, "J Young" <jyoungvisi...@aol.com> wrote:
I demand a recount
Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? A UCLA
senior research fellow says it makes all the difference. By Gary J.
Gates
December 7, 2007
Get out of the closet, J Young. Now.
Are you kidding? If he tried, the entire gay community would shove him
back in and block the door...
--
Mark K. Bilbo a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
------------------------------------------------------------
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who
understand binary and those who don't...
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| User: "Pr0r3p" |
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| Title: Re: Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? |
10 Dec 2007 10:12:34 AM |
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On Dec 9, 11:43 pm, "J Young" <jyoungvisi...@aol.com> wrote:
I demand a recount
When Young doesn't like the truth, he demands that it be twisted until
it says something he does like.
Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual?
Anyone with enough time to even care needs to get a job, a hobby or
both. Why is it you fundy whackjobs spend so much time worrying about
other people's sex lives? Could it be that you don't have one of your
own to worry about? Or, maybe you're just a busybody sticking his
nose in places it doesn't belong?
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? |
10 Dec 2007 04:46:11 PM |
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On 10 Dez., 17:12, Pr0r3p <pr0...@yahoo.com> wrote:
On Dec 9, 11:43 pm, "J Young" <jyoungvisi...@aol.com> wrote:
I demand a recount
When Young doesn't like the truth, he demands that it be twisted until
it says something he does like.
Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual?
Anyone with enough time to even care needs to get a job, a hobby or
both. Why is it you fundy whackjobs spend so much time worrying about
other people's sex lives? Could it be that you don't have one of your
own to worry about?
Check when J Young sends his rant and you'll come to this
conclusion...
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Just how many Americans identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual? |
09 Dec 2007 11:19:52 PM |
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On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 23:43:07 -0500, J Young wrote:
I demand a recount
Screw you.
No, on second thought...
--
Mark K. Bilbo a.a. #1423
EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion
------------------------------------------------------------
Let me get this straight: You believe that a cosmic Jewish
zombie who was his own father will let you live forever
if you pretend to eat his flesh, drink his blood, and
telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master,
so he can remove an evil force from your soul that he put
there a long time ago as punishment for all humanity because
a rib-woman made from a dust-man was convinced by a talking
snake to eat fruit from a magical tree.
- Unknown
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