Back in the 1960s, pioneering gay activists found an obscure passage from a 1948 book written by prominent sex researcher Alfred Kinsey that read, “10 percent of the males are more or less exclusively homosexual . . . for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55.” They used that quote to claim that 10 percent of the population was gay, even though Kinsey’s study was not designed to make a population-based estimate.
The motivation behind using the 10 percent figure was less about science and more about politics. In those days, gay activists needed to prove the very existence of a gay community. One in 10 was big enough to “matter.” It certainly mattered to me when, as a young, closeted gay man, I would look around a classroom with 50 people in it and think, “Wow, there are four other people here just like me.”
But the percentage was not so large as to overly threaten a society still extremely uncomfortable with the idea of gay people. The fact that the 1-in-10 figure still gets bandied about is a testament to the brilliance of this political strategy.
Lots of Americans have no idea how many people are gay or lesbian. A 2002Gallup poll suggested that one in six Americans had no estimate, and those who did have an opinion put the figure at a whopping 20 percent.
As a demographer who studies the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, I’ve been asked how many LGBT people there are more often than I can count. Politics may still play a role in why the answer is critically important, but there certainly is no longer a need to prove that gay people exist. Today, quantifying the population is about documenting how LGBT people live their lives. How many marry? How often do they have children? How many are serving in the military? How often do they experience discrimination?
These facts matter because legislatures, courts and voters across the country are debating how LGBT people should live their lives. All parties deserve to be informed by fresh research, not a six-decade-old study. We should be able to search the standard places where scholars and policy advocates go for information about the health and well-being of Americans — all Americans. Places such as the Census Bureau’s decennial count and American Community Survey, the premier sources of demographic data in this country. Or the National Health Interview Survey, a primary source of information about Americans’ health. Or the Current Population Survey, the preeminent source of information about the nation’s economic well-being. Or the National Crime Victimization Survey, where we get most of our data about experiences of crime.
But searching these sources for information about LGBT people would be largely futile. None ask questions about sexual orientation or gender identity.
I recently reviewed findings from 11 large surveys conducted since 2004, seven in the United States and four internationally. Averaging across the U.S.-based surveys, I found that nearly 9 million Americans (3.8 percent of adults) self-identify as LGBT. That’s equivalent to the population of New Jersey.
Loading...
Comments