# US adults think a quarter of Americans are gay/lesbian
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [May 27, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464 "2011-05-27T18:52:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/1 "2011-05-27T18:52:47Z")
From a Gallup poll:
[
> [@](#):
>
> U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, over half of Americans (52%) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35% who estimate that more than one in four are. Thirty percent put the figure at less than 15%.
]([http://www.gallup.com/poll/147824/Adults-Estimate-Americans-Gay-Lesbian.aspx?utm\_source=alert&utm\_medium=email&utm\_campaign=syndication&utm\_content=morelink&utm\_term=Politics](http://www.gallup.com/poll/147824/Adults-Estimate-Americans-Gay-Lesbian.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=Politics))
This poll result shocked me. In some ways I could comprehend discriminating against gays and lesbians if people believed they were a vanishingly rare segment of the population. If you thought there were five gay guys in the whole country, yeah, you’d possibly shrug and refuse to worry about such extreme outliers.
Or maybe I’m completely wrong. Still, I was shocked.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/2 "2011-05-27T19:01:54Z")
I take your point, but the over-estimation of the numbers might also, among some sections of the population, feed into a mentality of “They homos are taking over and need to be stopped.”
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### Author:  [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/3 "2011-05-27T19:04:12Z")
Research shows about 3% of males and 1% of females are homosexual.
The problem with numbers is the definition of homosexuality. Does one sex act, a homosexual make?
This is where Kinsey got thrown off. He was classifying anyone as having had homosexual sex as a homosexual. This was later corrected.
And in certain communities, especially the Black and Latino, position will define homosexuality. For instance, a top may consider himself straight and only a bottom is gay.
Another consideration is homosexuality is self defined. You are only gay if you think so. For example, I have a friend who insists he is bisexual. This man is 48 years old and hasn’t had sex, nor a date, with a woman since high school. Yet if you gave him a lie detector test and asked if he was gay, he’d say “No” and he’d pass it. Why? 'Cause he firmly believes in his heart of hearts he is bisexual, even though his sexual practices don’t bear that out.
Lastly as homosexuality is becoming more acceptable, people are willing to “try” it, more so than in my day.
Two good examples are singer Daryl Hall, who said, in a _Rolling Stone_ interview, he has had sex with men, but he prefers woman and doesn’t have sex with men anymore.
Ben Curtis, the guy who played the “Dell Dude” on TV commercials, said his father came out as being gay. He said, he decided to have sex with a man to see what it was like. He said, he didn’t like it and dates woman.
OK are either of these guys gay? I would say no, but some people might classify them as gay based on a few sex acts.
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### Author:  [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/4 "2011-05-27T19:08:23Z")
> [@mhendo](#):
>
> I take your point, but the over-estimation of the numbers might also, among some sections of the population, feed into a mentality of “They homos are taking over and need to be stopped.”
That was my immediate reaction. Like someone got electricity in their trailer, saw an episode of “Glee” and thought “Them homoqueers is everywhere! I’d say jus’ about everybody’s gay now.”
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### Author:  [@LeeshaJoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LeeshaJoy)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/5 "2011-05-27T19:47:21Z")
One wonders if anyone has tried correlating this with which respondents self-identify as gay.
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### Author:  [@rhubarbarin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhubarbarin)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/6 "2011-05-27T20:58:35Z")
Yeah, a lot of wacky people (who I have talked to) define anyone who has had any sexual experience with a person of the same gender as ‘gay’. By that definition at least 50% of the people I know who were born after 1975 are homosexuals.
Standards are stricter for men. A man can be defined as ‘gay’ because he admits he made out with another guy once in college when he was high, but most of these people understand that repeated public girl-on-girl action between women who exclusively date men is mostly an act for attention, and not to do with their inherent sexuality.
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### Author:  [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/7 "2011-05-27T21:04:27Z")
> [@rhubarbarin](#):
>
> Yeah, a lot of wacky people (who I have talked to) define anyone who has had any sexual experience with a person of the same gender as ‘gay’.
Or any man who has worn a pink shirt. Or likes anal sex (with women). Or women who have short hair, or don’t shave their legs. There are people who define homosexuality as anything but enjoying sex with people of the same gender, which makes sense if you think being gay is something you can do accidentally, or get indoctrinated into.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/8 "2011-05-27T22:43:56Z")
Well, you have to keep in mind that 137% of Americans are bad with numbers, estimations, proportions, and percentages.
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/9 "2011-05-27T23:27:47Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> Well, you have to keep in mind that 137% of Americans are bad with numbers, estimations, proportions, and percentages.
This, of course, is corrected in TV talent shows by allowing people to vote more than once.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/10 "2011-05-28T03:30:26Z")
> [@Markxxx](#):
>
> This is where Kinsey got thrown off. He was classifying anyone as having had homosexual sex as a homosexual.
That may be how the public interpreted his results, but Kinsey believed in a spectrum of sexual behavior that included things like “Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual”. He was also interested in studying sexual _behavior_, not sexual orientation as we think of it today.
> [@Alfred Kinsey](#):
>
> Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.
The figures Kinsey reported on male and female homosexual behavior are summarized on the [Kinsey Institute’s website](http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-data.html#homosexuality). The famous 10% figure comes from the percentage of men in Kinsey’s study who were predominantly homosexual in their behavior.
ETA: It would not surprise me if many of the people surveyed in the Gallup poll quoted in the OP had heard that 10% of the population is homosexual, and then when asked about how common homosexuality is thought something like “Well, if 10% of guys are gay, and 10% of women are lesbians, that’s 20%!”
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### Author:  [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/11 "2011-05-28T03:39:45Z")
Sounds like a question for Dan Savage 🙂
Or the teeming millions…
Or Cecil? I am sure it’s been asked; looking to see if Dan’s ever taken a stab at the question, but my phone is slow with using the Savage Love app, and I don’t see a searchable db online of his stuff.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/12 "2011-05-28T14:44:27Z")
> [@Taomist](#):
>
> Sounds like a question for Dan Savage 🙂
>
> Or the teeming millions…
>
> Or Cecil? I am sure it’s been asked; looking to see if Dan’s ever taken a stab at the question, but my phone is slow with using the Savage Love app, and I don’t see a searchable db online of his stuff.
The [Gallup poll write-up](http://www.gallup.com/poll/147824/Adults-Estimate-Americans-Gay-Lesbian.aspx) linked in the OP says:
> [@Gallup](#):
>
> There is little reliable evidence about what percentage of the U.S. population is in reality gay or lesbian, due to few representative surveys asking about sexual orientation, complexities surrounding the groups and definitions involved, and the probability that some gay and lesbian individuals may not choose to identify themselves as such. Demographer Gary Gates last month released a review of population-based surveys on the topic, estimating that 3.5% of adults in the United States identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, with bisexuals making up a slight majority of that figure.
I was able to pull up Gary Gates’s piece in the [Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gay-people-count-so-why-not-count-them-correctly/2011/04/07/AFDg9K4C_story.html) through the library (it looks like it’s not available free to the public), and he says:
> [@Gary Gates](#):
>
> 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.
>
> An estimated 19 million Americans (8.2 percent) report having engaged in some same-sex sexual behavior, and nearly 26 million (11 percent) report some same-sex sexual attraction. The latter figure is equivalent to the population of Texas.
Gates also expresses frustration with the famous 10% figure, and calls for better research on the subject. “Assumptions about people are flimsy; numbers are solid. The reality of our political system is that you don’t really count unless you are counted. So it’s time to stop believing an old estimate and start making an accurate count.”
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### Author:  [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/13 "2011-05-28T15:56:31Z")
I live in a town that is GLBT friendly, but with a heavy emphasis on the “L” - there’s a _very_ large and _very_ “out” lesbian community, but a much smaller gay male community. I had a conversation about GLBT demographics with one of my coworkers yesterday, who happens to be lesbian, and she said she experiences a bit of a culture shock when she leaves town, because the GLBT population elsewhere is so small.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/14 "2011-05-28T16:30:58Z")
Incidentally, the Gallup poll write-up also mentions that Americans have an inflated idea of what percentage of the US population is black or Hispanic. Here’s the results of a 2001 survey on the subject: [Public Overestimates U.S. Black and Hispanic Populations](http://www.gallup.com/poll/4435/Public-Overestimates-US-Black-Hispanic-Populations.aspx)
I remember hearing this before, and was surprised at the time to learn how off my own best guesses would have been. I would have estimated the African-American population as around 30% of the general population (this was true for the town where I grew up), and even though I \*know \*that’s far more than the correct national figure it still doesn’t seem right to me that the correct figure is less than half that much.
> [@Gallup](#):
>
> According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 12.3% of the U.S. population is black, and 12.5% is Hispanic. Gallup Poll results from March 26-28, however, show that slightly less than one in 10 Americans can accurately identify that the population of either blacks or Hispanics in this country falls between 10% and 14%. The typical American estimates the percentages of blacks and Hispanics in this country to be more than twice as high as they actually are.
>
> On average, Americans say that 33% of the U.S. population is black. In fact, a majority of Americans (56%) estimate that the percentage of blacks in this country stands at 30% or higher. As many as 17% of Americans say the percentage of blacks is 50% or greater. Only 7% accurately state that the percentage of blacks falls between 10% and 14% of the entire population.
I don’t see a similar survey about people’s estimates as to what percentage of the US is Jewish, but I suspect many people would also overestimate that figure. Quick, off the top of your head, guess what it is.
About 2%, or 6-6.5 million Americans. Surprised?
I haven’t studied the psychology behind this sort of thing, but I’d guess that the simple fact that being a minority means one is in some way different from most people means that minority individuals stand out more and make a bigger impression on others. This is probably true even if you’re a member of that same minority group yourself – when I lived in Japan I definitely noticed when I saw other white people out on the street.
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### Author:  [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/15 "2011-05-28T16:40:49Z")
> [@mhendo](#):
>
> I take your point, but the over-estimation of the numbers might also, among some sections of the population, feed into a mentality of “They homos are taking over and need to be stopped.”
FWIW, the overestimate is larger among Democrats than Republicans.
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### Author:  [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/16 "2011-05-28T18:19:35Z")
I always thought the 10% estimate was a high number, until I did a quick count in my office. At the time, there were 98 people in my department, and 10 of them were gay. So without even factoring in those in the closet, we hit the percentage just about exactly.
I know looking at the numbers in a progressive, East Coast, “bastion of liberalism” company isn’t necessarily going to correlate to those nationwide, but it was still a bit of a surprise it was actually that high.
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### Author:  [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/17 "2011-05-28T18:44:44Z")
> [@Hal\_Briston](#):
>
> I always thought the 10% estimate was a high number, until I did a quick count in my office. At the time, there were 98 people in my department, and 10 of them were gay. So without even factoring in those in the closet, we hit the percentage just about exactly.
Yeah, I think 10% is a lot closer to reality than any of the current studies.
A year ago, there were 20 people employed in my library. Two were gay/bisexual. A few people (including one of the gay/bisexual employees) have left since then that we haven’t replaced, so the percentage doesn’t hold right now. But 10% is probably close.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/18 "2011-05-28T18:56:20Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> Yeah, I think 10% is a lot closer to reality than any of the current studies.
I think 10% is too high if it’s supposed to be just gay man and lesbians, but if bisexuals are included then I could believe it’s even more than 10%.
> [@](#):
>
> A year ago, there were 20 people employed in my library. Two were gay/bisexual. A few people (including one of the gay/bisexual employees) have left since then that we haven’t replaced, so the percentage doesn’t hold right now. But 10% is probably close.
The library world is fairly gay-friendly though, so I’d expect there to be a larger than average number of LGB people working in libraries.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/19 "2011-05-28T18:56:24Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#):
>
> FWIW, the overestimate is larger among Democrats than Republicans.
Well, despite being left/liberal myself, i would never claim that there aren’t Democrats who have a problem with homosexuality.
Here in California, a significant number of people who voted Democrat in 2008 also voted for Proposition 8, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
Among Democrats who do support gay rights, over-estimating the number of GLBT folk might serve the opposite effect as the one i mentioned in my last post. They could be over-estimating the numbers in order to strengthen their argument that gays are not just a tiny minority of “deviants,” but a relatively large population that, apart from their sexual orientation, are just like everybody else.
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-adults-think-a-quarter-of-americans-are-gay-lesbian/583464/20 "2011-05-28T18:57:28Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#):
>
> A year ago, there were 20 people employed in my library. Two were gay/bisexual. A few people (including one of the gay/bisexual employees) have left since then that we haven’t replaced, so the percentage doesn’t hold right now. But 10% is probably close.
Three words: small sample size.
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