Gallup and professor Gary Gates have called up over 200,000 people and asked them, "Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?"
(By the way, I can never remember what the T in LGBT stands for: Transexual? Transvestite? Presumably, you can make a living on the academic conference circuit having a strong opinion on what the "T" should stand for and why your kind of Ts are most oppressed and therefore most deserving.)
Nationally, 3.5% say "Yes," which isn't too surprising or even interesting. It reminds me of the Onion football headline: "Both teams satisfied with three-and-a-half-yard carry." The Los Angeles Times ran an entire article on these results without mentioning the national average figure, which is a lot less than the Kinsey 10% number that all right-thinking people promoted for decades.
Of the 50 states, the gayest is Hawaii, which also isn't surprising. Hawaii has long been a destination for semi-closeted celebrities downshifting their careers, like Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors in 1976.
In general, the term "downshifting" comes to mind when looking at the top of the list: many of the the states at the top look like lower cost, quieter places for homosexuals to head for when the bright lights of San Francisco (Oregon, Nevada), Los Angeles (Hawaii, Nevada), and New York (Vermont, Maine) start to lose their luster.
Gay downshifting/retirement is a pretty big deal economically, as I noticed when I visited Palm Springs last year. The overall Palm Springs area is a vast exurban metropolis? exopolis?, while the actual municipality of Palm Springs, the original core, is now mostly inhabited by older homosexuals downshifting or retired from entertainment industry careers or the like. The whole place has been transformed into a fantasy land of early 1960s Suburban Moderne interior decoration. It's like you are five years old again and your mom is taking you to visit the house of her most upscale social-climbing friend, who has just redecorated in Space Age colors.
A gay male reader pointed out that Palm Springs even has a golf course, Indian Canyons, favored by that most minuscule of all demographics: gay male golfers. (He estimates there are about 30 gay male regulars at Indian Canyons.)
In general, a visit to Palm Springs suggests that the overall national population doesn't seem to be getting particularly gayer in the 21st Century, that there are a huge number of old gays from the 1970s around. The only young males around in downtown Palm Springs are the Mexican streetwalkers.
Other questions inspired by the list: is the big difference between South Dakota (4.4%) and North Dakota (1.7%) just caused by small sample sizes, or is South Dakota just gayer than North Dakota? I am reminded of the various serious attempts made by North Dakota legislators over the last generation to change the name of their state to the more manly-sounding "Dakota."
One important question for these kind of surveys where the goal is to come up with precise estimates of quite small percentages is how large the random error rate is in answering questions. I wouldn't be surprised if, say, one percent of respondents mishear or misunderstand the question, which would tend to falsely narrow the spread among states.
Posts
105 comments:
Of the 50 states, the gayest is Hawaii, which also isn't surprising. Hawaii has long been a destination for semi-closeted celebrities downshifting their careers, like Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors in 1976.
I imagine it's similar with states like Vermont and Maine with high gay rates. Wealthy gay New Yorkers/Northeasterners retiring or keeping a house in VT or ME.
My impression is that the move to drop the North from North Dakota was an mainly attempt to stop out of staters from thinking that the place is freezing cold all the time.
All together now: "DC is sooo gay!
Washington, DC is also the richest city in the Nation.
Qualified Americans who want a good job look to the Federal government now, quite the difference from the past.
Everyone in Brazil also wants government Jobs.
The Brazilification is happening like Ron Paul would say.
Interesting disparity between North and South Dakota.
Maybe South Dakota has some localized draw, like a gay culture, in one of its urban areas that pulls in gays from a multistate region?
All South Dakota's neighboring states are well below national average.
You are right in wondering about those homo South Dakotans. Perhaps there is no statistical significance in the difference between states (with the exception of the district of Columbia). Are you seeing patterns where there is just random noise ?
AKAHorace
I thought Liberace like Palm Springs.
What interests me is that almost all states are between 2.5% and 5.1%, which means gays are fairly evenly distributed. Which means gays no longer feel the need to "be" in any one part of the country over the other. Partially because they're Federally protected, partially because of growing real tolerance.
One interesting thing about the chart to me is ~4-5% evidently aren't sure of how to classify themselves.
It's not surprising that Massachusetts is near the top of the non-downshifting states. It has a community (Provincetown) that has long attracted gay men, and another community (Northampton) that has long attracted lesbians. Though I am surprised that New York isn't higher.
Peter
Wow what's with the huge gap between North and South Dakota?
So, DC is super gay and probably representative of most major cities. Maybe this is why our urban SWPLs believe that homosexuals are 50% of the US population and a powerful voting bloc.
I've lived in DC and Columbus, Ohio and Columbus is much gayer. Rainbow flags abound.
Based on the standard Bernouli sample variance, standard error for South Dakota and North Dakota estimate would be 0.76% and 0.52% respectively.
The standard error of the difference of the estimators would be 0.92%. Since the actual difference is 2.7%, this is a 3 sigma difference and significant p<0.005.
There could be a systematic difference in how they surveyed North and South Dakota, e.g. calling South Dakota at a gayer time of day or gay men in North Dakota being less likely to have listed numbers, etc.
But absent that we can conclude that South Dakota is indeed significantly gayer than North Dakota. Indeed we can also conclude that South Dakota is significantly one of the gayest states in the country. Don't have time to do the math, but it's in the top 20 gay states for p < .01
"is the big difference between South Dakota (4.4%) and North Dakota (1.7%) just caused by small sample sizes, or is South Dakota just gayer than North Dakota?"
North Dakota's low rate probably has to do with the oil drilling boom.
Tough guys move there for the opportunity to make 100K a year -- but it's assbusting work.
It takes manly men to perform such a dirty, physically demanding, 14-hour-days, dangerous job.
Lithping, limp-writhted homos run away screaming from the mere idea.
asked them
Stopped reading right there. Self-reporting is extremely unreliable.
For what it's worth, I think Kinsey's theory of sexuality being a spectrum is largely accurate.
Few people are either completely straight or completely gay.
Btw, Steve, what you have said if you'd been part of this study?
-Le Sigh.
Some people have been adding a 'Q' to the acronym, making it 'LGBTQ'. The 'Q' is for 'Questioning' (no joke).
Suggest the next letter that should be added be a 'P', standing for 'Pansexual". There's other possibilities, such as 'U' for 'Uh-Oh', and so on, just in the spirit of promoting a spirit of inclusiveness.
The last black mayor of this city, Harold Washington, was rumored to have been wearing women's underclothes, bra and panties, underneath his regular clothes when he unexpectedly went to the hospital due to having a heart attack. This by itself should be worth a of couple extra points added for the ranking.
Other questions inspired by the list: is the big difference between South Dakota (4.4%) and North Dakota (1.7%) just caused by small sample sizes, or is South Dakota just gayer than North Dakota?
South Dakota has more upscale, SWPLish cities than North Dakota: Rapid City is fast becoming the Portland of the prairie, for example. The closest North Dakota comes to either is Fargo; the other major cities there (Bismarck, Minot, Grand Forks etc.) are populated by the Wrong Kinds of white people. Toss in the oil boom in Williston, which is drawing more Wrong White People from the Deep South and West Coast, and you've got a pretty gay-unfriendly picture.
Part of the problem is that North Dakota is very visually unappealing; nothing but prairie, cornfields and the occasional river. You have the Badlands near Watford City, some nice rock formations around New Town, and the northernmost edge of the Black Hills around Bowman: that's it. Then there's the fact that the temperature can reach down to 40 or 50 below in the winter due to wind chill...
On the other hand, half of South Dakota is taken up by the Black Hills, which are absolutely gorgeous year-round. Rapid City also exists in a weird "climate island," so it's usually much warmer than the surrounding area.
The last black mayor of this city, Harold Washington, was rumored to have been wearing women's underclothes, bra and panties, underneath his regular clothes when he unexpectedly went to the hospital due to having a heart attack. This by itself should be worth a of couple extra points added for the ranking.
He was on his way to Man's Country, no doubt.
Hello JiSM,
"North Dakota's low rate probably has to do with the oil drilling boom.
Tough guys move there for the opportunity to make 100K a year -- but it's assbusting work."
teheee, being a bottom assbusting work...
you don't even realize how gay your comment was, jus' sayin'
The Sioux Falls airport men's bathrooms are notorious cruising spots.
Chicago:
The official acronym is now LGBTQMIAPD.
L = Lesbian
G = Gay (male)
B = Bisexual
T = Transgender/Transsexual
Q = Questioning
M = ?
I = Intersexual
A = Asexual
P = Pansexual
D = Demisexual
It's expanding, the acronym, and becoming a catch-all for anyone who is not a pair-bonding heterosexual. The holy grail for them, other than waiting for a current professional athlete in a major sport playing right now coming out of the closet (they have the fund raising letters pre-written and ready to go, complaining about how fill in the blank is being abused and harassed in his locker room), is an acronym that involves every letter in the alphabet. They're up to 10 of 26.
Why is Kentucky so high?
Hi, regarding accurate estimates for homosexuality in populations, some recent theoretical work suggests a mechanism behind homosexuality worth investigating, sexually antagonistic epi-marks:
UT study may explain inherited homosexuality
...
""Our theory is that some families can have very strong canalization that can be beneficial in one sex but detrimental if passed to the opposite sex. These strong 'switches' can make a female very feminine or a man very masculine. But sometimes the switches can be passed down to the opposite sex instead of being erased. So if a mother passes her epi-marks to a son, then the male will be less sensitive to testosterone and more feminine. Or if a daughter inherits her father's epi-marks then it can cause the female to become masculinized and affect sexual behavior."
Gavrilets said the research models "easily show" this theory is mathematically possible when compared to homosexual populations that exist in nearly all cultures. He said this is also the first proposal he is aware of that explains homosexuality in both genders."
This UT is University of Tennessee. (Is that just west of the Appalachians? Are those poor low-IQ people allowed to do research? (Joking ref to another thread.))
Study Finds Epigenetics, Not Genetics, Underlies Homosexuality
"Sex-specific epi-marks produced in early fetal development protect each sex from the substantial natural variation in testosterone that occurs during later fetal development. ... However, when these epi-marks are transmitted across generations from fathers to daughters or mothers to sons, they may cause reversed effects ...
The study solves the evolutionary riddle of homosexuality, finding that "sexually antagonistic" epi-marks, which normally protect parents from natural variation in sex hormone levels during fetal development, sometimes carryover across generations and cause homosexuality in opposite-sex offspring. The mathematical modeling demonstrates that genes coding for these epi-marks can easily spread in the population because they always increase the fitness of the parent but only rarely escape erasure and reduce fitness in offspring."
So, what exactly is the difference between "transsexual" and "transgender"?
Another thing: do all homosexuals approve of being lumped together with transsexual/transgender people? If I were a homosexual, I'm not so sure I would want to be a part of the same identity group as men who geld themselves and get breast implants.
Maybe South Dakota draws gays from all over the region.
I remember watching an episode of a "forensic files" type show, where a black lesbian killed her deaf and dumb white lover. There seemed to be a whole lesbian scene in the town. I think it was the capital of South Dakota, the name escapes me now( I know it was SD tho)...
Answers by race to the same survey from June 1 to September 30: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/10/20/opinion/darker-rainbow.html
What are all these members of marginalized sexual orientation groups doing in our nation's seat of power? Why aren't they out in North Dakota where those in power are less able to oppress them?
Amour Propre:
To your first question, I really don't know.
But to your second question:
do all homosexuals approve of being lumped together with transsexual/transgender people?
Personally, I don't know. But politically, I think most are happy. The wider you cast the net of the definition of "alternate orientation community," the more people will wind up in the net, which only accrues to the benefit of everyone in the net from a political/social/lobbying standpoint. This is why, for example, one group of beneficiaries of affirmative action are happy when there's a new "protected group" that qualifies for affirmative action comes to be, because it only creates a bigger lobbying-voting bloc under-base for the concept of affirmative action, which benefits all who benefit from affirmative action.
For what it's worth, I think Kinsey's theory of sexuality being a spectrum is largely accurate.
This was just the camel's nose in the tent for the onslaught of cultural deviance to follow.
Anonymous 4:26 said "For what it's worth..."
That would be "Nothing." Your impressions have no bearing on the scientific reality whatsoever, and Kinsey's sample groups were badly skewed. The completely straight or completely gay sentence, so much as it has an identifiable meaning at all, has only a politically convenient, and not a logical meaning.
I was surprised Maine was so high, since I recall it voting down the gay marriage referendum. And you'd expect even straight New Englanders to be in favor. Maine is a fairly rural state (on the other hand, so is Vermont), and gays flock to cities so I would have expected more urbanized states to top the list.
There's a big American Indian population in South Dakota. Could homosexuality or at least bisexuality be common in that community? I've never heard anything to that effect, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Peter
Oh yeah, the OP. Sorry. Anthropological researcher Greg Cochran suggests that homosexuality may indeed be epigenetic - in fact, a virus contracted early.
http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/homosexuality-epigenetics-and-zebras/
No ex-CSA state was above the 3.5% national average.
(Kentucky is the only 'Southern' state above, at 3.9%).
I suspect Steve is right that 'Gay retirement' majorly affects these numbers.
(1) Migration of young Gays to 'SWPL' areas (10% in Washington DC -- which may mean 1 in 6 among DC Whites).
(2) Cultural bias within victimization-addicted 'SWPL' areas, where "Gay is the new Black", and so on. (If 1% of people lie in a given state for that reason, that puts them way up the list).
(3) Gay retirement
ND:SD::John Woo:Ang Lee
I can't recall which of Matt Ridley's books it was from (Genome, Nature vs Nurture, Red Queen?), but he described a study which seemed to indicate that male homosexuality was related to an immune response on the part of the mother. The more older brothers a man had, the more likely he was to be homosexual. The range was around 3% for 1st or 2nd born males, increasing to about 4% for 3rd born males. That matches pretty well with the self identified numbers.yseffa
I'll bet the high % in DC is due to bi-sexuals. Those political types will screw anything. They'd screw a snake if they thought it would give them a thrill.
all relatively scientific data continues to point at about 4%.
i know a bi golfer, but he's 27 and lives in one of those golf course communities in florida.
i wonder if the north dakota south dakota divergence is due to the energy boom in north dakota bringing in hundreds of thousands of real, rugged, blood and sweat, trade my labor for money type men. those guys are almost never gay.
There's one fairly famous male golfer who is well into his 40s, never married, lives in a compound with his parents.
i wonder if the north dakota south dakota divergence is due to the energy boom in north dakota bringing in hundreds of thousands of real, rugged, blood and sweat, trade my labor for money type men. those guys are almost never gay.
That implies that the native North Dakotans are some of the gayest people in the Union and is up there with South Dakota.
Are the native North Dakotans - ranchers, farmers, etc. - among the gayest people in the country?
There's one fairly famous male golfer who is well into his 40s, never married, lives in a compound with his parents.
Are there are any gay golfers who are in relationships with their caddies?
My thought looking at those numbers is that the states you'd expect to be more tolerant (Mass, Vermont, Oregon, ...) self-report higher numbers of gays. Some of that could be migration, but assuming equal ratios at birth then differences of 1 to 2% of a states population means a lot of migration - on the order of tens to hundreds of thousands. Doesn't seem likely, especially in economically depressed places like Oregon or Vermont or Maine. Far more likely is that there's still a lot of stigma attached to being gay in some of the states around 2-3%, so people self report lower. Why tell a pollster something that gets you no benefit and can only make your life more difficult if word gets out.
So if that's true, then the higher reporting states are more representative of true numbers of gays, putting the number around 4 to 4.5%.
Growing up in Mass in the 80s and 90s there was nothing worse than being gay. It wasn't until the early to mid-nineties that I remember any tolerance. And now they're one of the gay capitals of the country. Things change quickly.
He was on his way to Man's Country, no doubt.
It's always a good day at iSteve when some Man's Country snark manages to sneak its way past Komment Kontrol.
"teheee, being a bottom assbusting work..."
Yeah, well, I'm a girl. I'm not, unlike you, constantly on the lookout for homo double-entendres as a signaling device for potential hookups.
"Are there are any gay golfers who are in relationships with their caddies?"
Yes -- permanent relationships. Many pros have their brothers caddy for them.
"Anonymous said...
For what it's worth, I think Kinsey's theory of sexuality being a spectrum is largely accurate."
Or perhaps it was just accurate for the convicted felons who made up a large portion of Kinsey's sample.
"countenance said...
What interests me is that almost all states are between 2.5% and 5.1%, which means gays are fairly evenly distributed. Which means gays no longer feel the need to "be" in any one part of the country over the other. Partially because they're Federally protected, partially because of growing real tolerance."
Or perhaps the overall numbers of those who self-identify as homosexual have increased due to active recruiting. Of course, homosexual activists say that they don't recruit. They also used to say they had no interest in marriage.
Pretty surprisingly interesting post from Sullivan on the same issue. Says sexual repression in the first stretch of his career is what made him so productive and focused. Also reads like he hit the merlot/medicinal marijuana/testerone a little early tonight.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/02/17/3-5-percent/
"By the way, I can never remember what the T in LGBT stands for:"
Teletubbies.
Back in my Yuppie days in San Francisco I remember reading the SF Bay Guardian one time. The Guardian is your basic liberal free rag with one or two local stories and a bunch of adds for massage parlors in the back and like any other magazine there was an obituary. Because this was SF in the 80's it filled with memorials for gay men who died from AIDS. What struck me was that there was not one single man who was actually born in SF and probably none who were even from the Bay Area. They were all from what we would now all call "deep" Red States. San Francisco is a ghetto. Another observation from the time, the more flamboyant and obviously gay they were, the more likely they were to bug out for SF. It is not just how gay a city is but how gay the gays are in the city.
Once again, you take the opportunity to let us know that golf is not gay, and that golf is your favorite sport, and therefore don't even consider the possibility that you might be gay. I think you have developed a terrible fear of having "Steve Sailer gay" pop up on a google search. I don't think you have much to worry about, however, I don't think you'll ever shake that "Steve Sailer racist" thing.
"Few people are either completely straight or completely gay."
BS
The vast majority are totally 100% straight. A few gay, a few confused. The rest totally straight.
I don't think you'll ever shake that "Steve Sailer racist" thing.
Steve, don't you know anyone at google who can fix that for you, so that it comes up "steve sailer liberal" instead of "steve sailer racist"?
Maybe gays are now more comfortable sitting in the quiet, non-competitive exurbs satisfying their urges by quietly satisfying their appetites with porn and onanism.
I guess we now know why those liberals fantasized about Brokeback Mountain. As is typical with them, they project their quirks onto southern white conservatives. More like Brokeback Georgetown.
Regarding Hawaii...
In addition to the gay retirees, there is a Polynesian cultural element to it. Most Polynesian cultures recognize a third gender. In Hawaiian culture, it's male female and mahu.
In practice, it is not uncommon and culturally accepted for families to raise their youngest boy or any boy who displays effeminate characteristics as girls or mahus. In fact, a straight male can have a sexual relationship with a mahu and that relationship would not be considered gay, because mahus are considered a third gender.
In modern western interpretation, little boys are being forced to wear girls clothing and are expected to behave like girls. Most live their entire lives this way.
The result being, you see many transvestites built like linebackers.
Pretty surprisingly interesting post from [Andrew] Sullivan on the same issue. Says sexual repression in the first stretch of his career is what made him so productive and focused.
Well, political repression created Tolstoy and Dostoyesvsky, and (later) Solzhenitsyn.
I am surprised that Pennsylvania has so few gays.
like FWG above, I am wondering why the two columns don't add to 100.
Vermont appears both very gay and very straight.
Having lived in KY for a number of years, I'm also puzzled by their relatively high placement on the list.
Kentucky is the biggest surprise it has the old strict penecoastial that use snakes in the service but its also libertarian like in Rand Paul, so maybe this explains it. Well maybe a lot of gays are also leaving expensive Laguna Beach for Nevada. Laguna Beach was known as the gay place for years.
All of this is suspect. How many straight males from non-liberal states would even bother to participate in a poll like this, anyways...
But absent that we can conclude that South Dakota is indeed significantly gayer than North Dakota. Indeed we can also conclude that South Dakota is significantly one of the gayest states in the country. Don't have time to do the math, but it's in the top 20 gay states for p < .01 Gay men do call center work and South Dakota has a lot of call centers.
That sexually antagonistic epi-marks homosexuality paper is online: Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development.
A few interesting extracts:
"... from the perspective of other traits influenced by fetal androgen signaling, and in which there is gonad-trait discordance, the high prevalence of homosexuality is not unusual. ... abdominal versus descended... gonads... The prevalence of this androgen-influenced trait is 2-9%. ... female idiopathic hirsutism (i.e., male-like pattern of body hair in the absence of both atypical menstrual cycles and elevated circulating androgens, 6%; ... the substantial prevalence of homosexuality (a gonad-trait discordance) is not unusual for a phenotype strongly influenced by fetal androgen exposure.
... it is now well established that environmentally induced epi-marks, like those from prenatal/perinatal stress, are common and can be heritable with sex-specific effects on the brain and behavior ... Our modeling analysis clearly demonstrates that mutations that cause epi-marks that blunt androgen signaling in XX fetuses, or boost it in XY fetuses, can have a selective advantage even when they carryover across generations at nontrivial frequency and reduce fitness by feminizing or masculinizing opposite-sex descendants.
... possibility leading to persistently high levels of gonad-trait discordance is an arms race between male- and female-benefit SA-epi-marks that blunt/boost androgen signaling during fetal development. The accumulation of such SA-epi-marks favoring one sex generates selection in the other sex to evolve new epi-marks that protect them from opposite-sex SA-epi-marks that sometimes carryover across generations."
They raise an interesting idea that relatively high-levels of homosexuality (due to their proposed mechanism, I take it they mean the antagonistic epi-mark war between the evolving sexes hasn't settled down) in humans may be due to the rapid pace of recent human evolution:
"... few if any of the sexual signals used by chimps (our closest relative, from which we have evolved independently for only six to eight million years) are sexually attractive to humans, and hence that most of the neurological networks underlying human sexual attraction are relatively newly evolved.
... Similarly, the rapid divergence in body hair between humans and chimps may explain the high prevalence of idiopathic hirsutism in females."
So that's why I'm not attracted to hairy women...
Pretty surprisingly interesting post from Sullivan on the same issue. Says sexual repression in the first stretch of his career is what made him so productive and focused.
During the "first stretch of his career", Sullivan aggressively pursued anonymous sex:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-06-19/news/the-real-andrew-sullivan-scandal/
"Homosexuality as a Consequence of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development"
Could be, but it seems like something that natural selection would work on, pronto. Especially because it seems like much of it is just a switch being flipped the wrong way. There are a lot of developmental problems where we see people with a lot of problems because they are just not put together right. Building a brain, for instance, is really complicated and it sometimes doesn't get built right.
And to some extent that's true for sexual orientation. But, we also see a lot of high-functioning people. Michelangelo was a high-functioning individual, he just didn't like girls.
But, it's important to note that just because one explanation for homosexuality doesn't explain all cases doesn't mean it can't be true.
Gay men do call center work and South Dakota has a lot of call centers.
How gay is India?
Michelangelo was a high-functioning individual, he just didn't like girls.
More likely painfully shy, extremely introverted, intensely interested in his work/craft, etc.
My mother was a telephone operator a lot of gays work for the Telephone company and I knew gay guys in other type of call center enviroments. In India I don't know how many workers are gay.
"Could be, but it seems like something that natural selection would work on, pronto."
Yeah... if I understand their point (and I just lightly skimmed the paper), they are suggesting that there is more than one thing being "solved for" here at a time. There's protecting the sexual orientation of the parent when the parent is a fetus and there's the sexual orientation of the parent's opposite-sex children when they are a fetus. I'm guessing that the sexual "arms race" they refer to implies some sort of evolutionary convergence to a hair on the safe side of the "optimal set point", but that in practice the system can oscillate or otherwise not converge fast. Nothing's really broken here, the complex system is just not solving for a clearly defined problem. And there could well be multiple complications and reasons for that slow convergence (kind of sounds like a simulated annealing type convergence system).
Do you think the figures for DC are influenced by the "going-on-the-down-low" phenomenon among blacks? That's a subject you might explore.
This poll is BS. Because being gay is hip and cool, even heteros who might have experimented only once with some gay shit might say 'yes' to being a 'bi=sexual'.
It's like white Hispanics with just one-drop of non-white blood going around as 'people of color'.
This is especially true of straight politically correct white girls. I had a white female friend who once experimented with lesbianism but goes around calling herself 'bi' though she only went with guys afterwards.
One-drop-your-pants rule.
I think REAL homos are around 2% of the population if that.
And people with just a little Jewish blood will call themselves Jewish. It seems to be especially popular in Africa these days.
And there are so many whites who claim to be part Indian.
the real question is how many people who say they are are really bisexual, and how many are just homosexual but not quite ready to say so yet, or straight but "open-minded."
is it mostly women? i notice there's quite a bit of skepticism toward the idea of bisexual men from homosexuals.
clearly a study must be done
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of males have had sexual thoughts about another male at one point.
Do you think the figures for DC are influenced by the "going-on-the-down-low" phenomenon among blacks? That's a subject you might explore.
Andrew "RawMuscleGlutes" Sullivan writes:
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/02/17/3-5-percent/
"DC is the super-gayest “state” – but that is a little distorted since DC is really the inner city of a larger metropolitan area and the gays tend to congregate there. But there’s also the attraction of politics for gay men. If you’ve ever spent much time among the staffers on the Hill, you’ll know what I mean: the US capitol makes the Vatican look straight."
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of males have had sexual thoughts about another male at one point.
It would be hard not to, with the media throwing the idea in our face constantly. But having the thought and immediately rejecting it as sickening hardly makes one part-homosexual.
So a Gallup calls me up and asks if I'm gay. I tell the Gallup...
Kinsey claim of 10% is obviously always such bullshit, but was that the rate supposed to refer to those who identify as gay/whatever or those who've had some homosexual contact? I'd say the rate of those who've had some homosexual contact at some point is much higher than 10%
I wonder what the break down is between men and women. Are some of these states' homosexual populations mostly men or are some mostly women? I lived in Vermont for many years. I hardly remember any men who were homosexuals, but I knew quite a few women who were in their 40s or 50s, wore flannel, played golf, and had a similar female friend with whom they attended most social functions. Maybe the homosexual men made more effort to hide it, or maybe there just weren't as many of them.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/charlotte-gainsbourg-gets-in-the-middle-of-a-man-sandwich-in-new-pic-from-lars-von-triers-nymphomaniac-20130209
The survey could be skewed to the LBGT side. A certan percentage did not answer either way. I wonder how many faked the answer or said either "yes" or "no" to make the pollster hang up. Random answers favor the smaller camp.
The margin of error is to large to make the ranking of states significant, it seems:
"For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point. The margin of sampling error for each state varies depending on the number of interviews conducted in that state.
Margins of error for individual states are no greater than ±6 percentage points, and are ±3 percentage points in most states. The margin of error for the District of Columbia is ±6 percentage points."
lgbt
pronounced
'legbit'?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-0217-20130217,0,5004796.column
Old black elite going down like ole wasp elite.
Jews, gays, mulattos, and conquis on the up and up.
White cons and old bblack establishment on the down and down.
I'd say the rate of those who've had some homosexual contact at some point is much higher than 10%.
Perhaps, if that's an average of men and women, with women being much higher (counting every college or slumber party experimentation) and men being much, much lower.
As Steve pointed out years ago, homosexuals and lesbians are very different, and don't even like each other very much despite being political allies. So yes, this poll would have been much more interesting had they separated the men and women. You'd probably see some states much higher in one or the other.
I guess the 19th hole has a whole other meaning at Indian Canyons.
North Dakotans named their capital city "Bismarck". South Dakotans named theirs "Pierre". What else do you need to know?
Ironically, NoDak's Capitol challenged Nebraska's as the most phallic in the land.
Then Florida beat them both by erecting the whole package.
Look at those top states again. They're all quite small. It wouldn't take much migration to shift their needle. If one-half of one percent of New York City moved to Vermont, that'd be five percent of their new home.
The South produces just as many homos as anywhere else, but most pack up and go, e.g. Truman Capote, Rex Reed, Way Bandy. They're certainly more open. (Of the true-blue Yankees I've known, even the straight ones haven't come out of the closet!) Janice Dickinson recalled how her high-school BFF claimed he gave the best head south of the Mason-Dixon Line. All I could think was, that makes you National Champion.
DC has always had a large visible gay population - even back in the 1970s and probably before. Politics is just Hollywood for ugly people, as they say, so it's not surprising the same skill sets and interests that make gays succesful in the other theatrical arts work well in the lobbying, PR and image management worlds.
Maybe gays are now more comfortable sitting in the quiet, non-competitive exurbs satisfying their urges by quietly satisfying their appetites with porn and onanism
Interesting observation. The arrival of terabytes of free porn at the click of a mouse must surely have modified the need for gays in the boondocks to relocate to more exciting sexual environments.
"One important question for these kind of surveys where the goal is to come up with precise estimates of quite small percentages is how large the random error rate is in answering questions. I wouldn't be surprised if, say, one percent of respondents mishear or misunderstand the question, which would tend to falsely narrow the spread among states."
-Yeah, if the surveyor has a lisp, that would do it...
Ninety three comments as I write this and not one Palmetto Princess joke; that's what sets the Steveosphere apart. (Or maybe it's just Komment Kontrol.)
"Building a brain, for instance, is really complicated and it sometimes doesn't get built right."
I'm dying to use this line in some way, shape, or form.
Countenance;
You need to throw the digit "2" into your acronym. The chancellor at my nephew's graduation commencement included "2 spirited" in the LBGTbladablada. As near as I could make out, it is what American Indians call gay people so you have to include their term to be culturally sensitive.
Countenance;
You need to throw the digit "2" into your acronym. The chancellor at my nephew's graduation commencement included "2 spirited" in the LBGTbladablada. As near as I could make out, it is what American Indians call gay people so you have to include their term to be culturally sensitive.
My issue looking at this is it doesn't jive with the estimated 15% of the female population who is bisexual.
This could ultimately go down to having a large population of bisexual women who identify as straight women.
Also, seeing DC as 10% abberant, just goes to show exactly how big and important the gay lobby is to the Democratic party.
Re: Maine. Gays in Massachusetts are just like the straights; if you live south of the city your vacation/retirement destination is Cape Cod, specifically Provincetown for gays. If you live north of Boston, your orientation is the beaches of NH and southern Maine, where you find the new gay Mecca of Ogunquit. Gay friends say that P-Town and Ogunquit actually plan their "events" around each other's schedules.
Vermont is a landing spot for New Yorkers of all stripes, but it's more the lesbian destination. It seems to have evolved from the lesbian scene around Western Massachusetts, just across the border, where two of Seven Sisters are located.
As near as I could make out, it is what American Indians call gay people so you have to include their term to be culturally sensitive.
You mean that the American Indians survived for thousands of years without burning them at the stake or drowning them in peat bogs?
Will wonders never cease!
People who are gay in North Dakota usually head to the Twin Cities or Seattle as soon as they graduate or stay in the closet. Hence the 1 percent who reported being gay.
Would it be fair to think the gay population would be much more urban then rural or small town? Imagine you are the only gay guy living in a small town. Even if your fellow townsfolk had no problem with it, or with you, you are still very isolated. Wouldn't you be much more inclined, then your hetero counterparts, to leave and go to a big city where you could presumably network and contact with other gays? Perhaps we should look at the urbanization of states for clues as to the size of the LGBT community? More urban=more gay, more rural=less gay. Any thoughts anyone?
There seems to be a similar thing going on in the South. Most of those states are very low on the state list, and yet Little Rock, Knoxville, and Atlanta all make the cities list. Judging from HIV rates, Atlanta seems to be the most over-run by gay corruption.
urban Atlanta -- Africkan.
Little Rock -- Dunno.
Knoxville -- College town, main campus of distinguished and prestigious U. of TN. Eminent alumni include D. Davenport.
Hole-in-wall club adjacent to back ot UTN law school was considered to be hottest or coolest night club in East Tennessee. Can't remember the name of the place.
However, K-town is not nearly depraved as Kentucky metropolises Lexington or Louisville or maybe Bowling Green. Things just not wholesome up there.
"Building a brain, for instance, is really complicated and it sometimes doesn't get built right."
I don't know anything about genetics, but I don't see how homosexuality is necessarily a brain not built right. Just like in social insects, it may have been built right, it just was built to optimize survival of the genome (that is, the group), not the reproductivity of the individual with the brain. Why homosexuality in the case of mammals does this is still open to question. But if evolution and genetics always optimized reproduction of the single individual, why would you have ants or bees that can't reproduce, but do contribute to the survival of the group?
(I think the epi-genetics stuff is saying that it's worth sacrificing the sexual orientation of 4% of your population to strongly and unerringly shape the sexuality of the other 96%. Presumably a fetus is in a rather dynamically changing environment.)
Anon 154:
That makes some sense. A straight man in a town of 10,000 people probably has 500-1000 potential mates, women who aren't married and are close enough to the same age as he is to be worth pursuing. Looks and shared interests and religion and such may narrow that down quite a bit. If we assme 5% of men are gay, then a gay man in that town starts out with 25-50 potential mates, who then also need to be narrowed down for shared interests and such. Even assuming no hostility to gays in that town, he almost has to go to a bigger city to find a mate. (Oddly, I suspect the same logic applies for Jews who care about marrying another Jew.). That logic must draw gays to bigger cities and to concentrations of gays in smaller cities, just for reasons dictated by arithmetic.
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