Just going to toss this in there:
Coming out took awhile for me. I was confused why I always had loved women, but was also starting to realize that I also had feelings for men or other genders. Nobody really explained sexuality that much in health class (Just stuff about ovaries and HIV), and any books on sex that I had as a kid had minimal detail about gay people or bisexual people, just that they existed. It took awhile to understand.
I kinda hope that children these days have a much more holistic class on all this stuff, as it really would have been a huge burden off my shoulders and soul.
So they asked me if I was BI. Well I took a little Spanish in high school, but not enough to be BI. But I didn't want to look stupid so I said sure I'm BI.
That tracks. Tons of bisexuals out there who historically would've stayed in the closet if they even realized what they were feeling and that straight people don't have those feelings. Also trans people not just drinking ourselves too death to avoid feeling dysphoria.
I’m surprised that the number is so low to represent everyone in that community.
I'm rather shocked that it's so low. Back in the '90s, the estimate for gay people was 10%,. Here we are 30 years later when it's perfectly fine to be out of the closet and love someone of the same sex... And the numbers haven't changed? I would have thought it would increase with the acceptance of being gay.
where I live it's not exactly perfectly fine to be out of the closet, lol - your mileage may vary, significantly, and people definitely still live in the closet, acceptance is not universal even if it's much, much better than it was before (and you can see this in the generational differences, older people are less likely to come out of the closet and younger people are more likely to).
Well it's 20ish% for Gen Z, so the acceptance likely plays a part there
I think it's missing the percentage of people who would absolutely fuck members of the same sex but don't value the attraction enough to change their identity like the spring-fevered guys who know they can get a good nut fast. Another similar case is cis males who enjoy sex with trans women but otherwise pursue cis women and have families going behind their wives. There are plenty of those on Grindr now. Sexuality is wild.
Don't statisticians try and account for biases like that and thus may have been accurate the first time around?
Sure, but sexuality is a spectrum, and if it's more expected I would think more people would experiment and move farther away from the norms.
Well for the foreseeable future there's probably going to continue being a percentage that won't report. And then maybe it's just a matter of not everyone being LGBTQ or more? It definitely seems like it would continue increasing globally for a while though. Though given some recent events I wouldn't be surprised if that number gets skewed for now.
Yep. For people who don't know... The reason the rate of left-handedness went up and then stabilized is that the actual rate was always that high, but the stigma against lefties caused most to force themselves to use their right hands for as much as they could.
Same goes for LGBTQ+ people. Except we're probably not at the plateau yet, and the orange fucknut is making it harder for them to come out.
So what I'm hearing is to put on a habit and hit my wife's hand with a ruler every time she writes with her left hand to keep her from sinning
With the context of your "toss-in" --
Gee, it's almost like people have always been the way that they are, and what's changed is the freedom to be who they are out loud.
and now nazls own the place
And still people think its frogs, media, chemtrails etc "making/forcing" people to be LGBTQ.
Put another way: GOP waging war against at least 10% of the US population.
:/
You'd think that 10% would be enough to make it difficult for them to do so. Throw in everyone else who hates what they're doing and there ought to be enough for an actual popular resistance.
I was to see a chart of how much of that is L, G, B, T, and Q broken down over time. Definitely would have been mostly G at the start, now T seems to be growing the fastest. We've honestly made a ton of progress, gay marriage is so normalized it's not even a maga talking point.
Now that we've got the serious stuff out of the way...being left handed obviously makes you gay.
I would assume that's the case, especially when you account for the changes to what counts as trans ober the past century. You used to have to lie your ass off to get hormones if you were anything short of perfectly gender conforming and straight. When I started a decade ago there were still people who would deny you hormones for just the wildest shit, like a friend got told she had to wear a dress and makeup to therapist appointments to get approved, and it wasn't like an old person who said that, it was the therapist.
Hell I know people who transitioned in the 90s and back then the question was if you told your friends and family or just moved to a different city and start a new life. So like yeah of course a lot of people would see that and decide that what amounted to treating depression wasn't worth that.
anything short of perfectly gender conforming and straight
Shit, I fell directly into that category & I still delayed my sex change by 10 years after my first attempt at coming out.
It worked until it didn't. And yes it was hell, I lost years of my life, and wouldn't wish that on anybody. I think about how much I missed every day, but also, younger me wasn't wrong.
Hopefully they didn't give their names, because they're a little further down the list after the immigrants and trans folk.
Makes me think of how many people will remain in the closet, because they fear the possibility of these stupid and disgusting repercussions.
From my anecdotal experiences, people who have come out publicly as LGBTQ seem a lot happier afterwards.
While I was in a mental health clinic for depression, anxiety coupled with a cocaine and drinking problem, I spoke with another patient about my fairly unhealthy coping mechanisms. She noted that her brother was fully addicted to every drug he could get his hands on, for many years of his life while being completely depressed. Going in and out of rehabs and clinics, but never kicked any of it. Once he came out as gay, i.e. be his true self, he managed to quit the drugs and was a lot more happy in general.
One of my favourite YouTubers to watch is Philosophytube. She made an announcement video where she came out as trans. She had a quote near the end of the video that went something like
When people ask me, "Do you feel like a man or a woman", I say, I feel happy.
If a person stays in the closet, of course they will become depressed. Sexuality and gender Identity is a core part of being human.
They already fear being ousted by family and friends, but now the government is involved, even more will silently suffer because of who they are.
I'd give anything to alleviate my mental health issues. I have no idea why I'm depressed, but if I did, and I knew I'd be punished for being myself, that would make matters a lot worse
Philosophytube is excellent and for anyone who doesn't know that quote is a reference to a more famous quote by youtuber contrapoints: "I look inside myself and ask, do I feel like a man, or a woman, and the answer is that I feel like shit." And I love this inversion because both approach philosophy wildly differently.
Contra is someone who needs to know more, and to pursue truth even when it is self destructive. Her transition wasn't the turning point towards happiness (though her accepting she's a lesbian and an addict may have been), but it was an act of deep personal honesty.
Philosophytube routinely approaches topics as tools to improve your understanding and life, and if Kant can't improve your life that's ok, you don't need to deal with his ideas if they don't, but aren't they still interesting and a good foundation to other ideas… Her transition was clearly both a turning point and a culmination of a progression towards happiness, and you can see it in her face in her videos.
I like that duality because I've met people like both of them and in both cases the end result is an increase in both happiness and truth.
I wish you too all the healing you can find. Mental health is hard and healing can be long and slow, but practicing healing does pay off
I agree that Trump's regime is a real danger to all these people, but the only way through this is solidarity and resistance, not hiding.
How many voted for the Orange and how many didn't bother to vote at all?
I genuinely want to know why I keep seeing people repeat this sentiment.
If we lived in a healthy democracy, a candidate that would infringe so openly on rights - especially in this context - wouldn't have the platform to even run or the governmental power to do so.
With that supposition I think we can agree something is clearly not healthy, whether societal socially, or as a function of checks on the government. And that's before questioning the legitimacy of this outcome. Not that the answer will change anything, but regardless, I chose not to harp on the people who genuinely did not know better, as you imply of LGBT here.
The collapse of the systems that are intended to power check the goverment will benefit literally nobody, not that voted for, nor against, nor at all. So what do we gain by putting blame other than infighting?
If you know any significant number of people that voted for the rapist it's hard to ignore the distinct possibility he actually won. I hope it comes to light that he didn't and he gets booted, but lots of people are still cheering this on. I have family members cheering this on, so anecdotally I feel like he got the votes
I hope it comes to light that he didn't and he gets booted
I really do my best to not be alarmist, but by who? I've stopped counting the headlines about agencies being illegitimately gutted and information leaking, each instance on dubious legal ground at very best. How could any prosecution keep up and be any more effective than when he was first impeached?
~
I'm fortunate that none of my closer family has fallen in. But for both of the companies I've worked for since 2016, essentially everyone - especially corporate management, but even shop workers - has drank the koolaid. Had one today tell me he was excited for his DOGE check.. In no way am I doubting there are many, many fools who wanted to be played twice, but it won't be until the majority of them softening on their loyalty to him and actually start asking questions that maybe something can happen - or not.
To make some semblance of a difference, changing some of those peoples minds collectively is really all to do for now. These people only watch the five, fox news business, and maybe some Joe rogan. Of course they believe the only things they hear. But that's a much easier task when shit actually gets rough for everyone, which simultaneously I do not anticipate.
Less than voted for Trump in 2020, according to polling (13% in 2024).
Why do you ask?
I asked because, that 13% combined with those who didn't vote at all might have been the difference between being persecuted or not by the current administration.
Note that this isn't limited to this community, it's any community who voted for a candidate who openly and in public stated repeatedly what he was going to do.
Now it's happening like a minute to minute reality TV show and it's affecting the whole planet.
I asked because, that 13% combined with those who didn't vote at all might have been the difference between being persecuted or not by the current administration.
13% of 10% of the population, if every single queer person voted, is 1.3% of the total population. Blaming 1.3% of the population for being oppressed by the majority that voted for oppressing them is at best a waste of time.
84% of Trump’s votes came from white people; if 5% of them were less shitty we wouldn’t be going through this. But somehow this societal conversation always comes back to minorities not voting correctly or not voting enough, instead of talking about white America’s racism problem.
I think my point got lost in this and I'm to blame for not articulating myself, I apologise.
I was (poorly) trying to point out that there are enough minorities in the population who are currently being persecuted who either voted for this administration, or didn't vote at all.
The overall margin between the candidates was only 0.15%.
Sorry if I was short about it or jumped the gun; I’ve seen more people than I like blaming Trump being elected on their favored punching bag, while ignoring the bigoted elephant in the room.
The twisted thing is, even the full throated, Nazi-saluting racists are going to get hurt by this administration. Nobody benefits from measles making a comeback or people dying from lack of abortion access, and health problems don’t care how you voted.
It's not limited to measles and abortion, the Avian Influenza A (H5N1) which recently jumped the species barrier a second time from birds to cows into veterinarians is being monitored by the CDC who just lost 10% of their staff.
Source:
Several of whom are dear friends and family, and I worry about them more each passing day, with the world increasingly losing its mind.
This statistic would be higher if people didn't turn their uncertainty about themselves into hatred for others. It's not a coincidence that Republicans always get caught doing gay things in secret. And what happens to them by other Republicans when they get outed is exactly why they don't want to get caught. And if there's anything I know about sexual repression is that you tend to lash out in other ways. I wouldn't even be surprised if everything that someone like Musk is doing right now, from constantly having kids with other women to constantly needing to make more money, is because he probably sucked a dick in college and feels scared that he's not a man anymore. As Sam Altman said a few weeks back, everything he does is from a place of insecurity.
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