Refutg the '1 10 is gay' myth | Ask Dr. Brown

Contents:

• IS 10% OF THE POPULATN REALLY GAY?
• ONE TEN: A GAY MYTHOLOGY
• HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE GAY? LGBT STATISTICS.
• REFUTG THE '1 10 IS GAY' MYTH

IS 10% OF THE POPULATN REALLY GAY?

Over the last , he has mted himself to nonprof service, servg on the Arizona steerg mtee of the Human Rights Campaign, the board of the Greater Phoenix Gay & Lbian Chamber of Commerce, The Melonhead Foundatn, and as -chair of the board of directors for Equaly Arizona. Back 1977, the US Natnal Gay Task Force (NGTF) was ved to the Whe Hoe to meet Print Jimmy Carter’s reprentativ – a first for gay and lbian groups.

The NGTF’s most proment mpaigng slogan was “we are everywhere”, backed up by the memorable statistil claim that one 10 of the US populatn was gay – this figure was eply and passnately where did Bce Voeller, a scientist who was a founr and first director of the NGTF, get this nice round 10% om? To fd out, we have to lve back to Aled Ksey’s surveys 1940s Ameri, which were groundbreakg at the time but are now seen as archaic their methods: he sought out rponnts prisons and the gay unrworld, ma iends wh them and, over a cigarette, noted down their behavurs g an obscure . Ksey did not believe that sexual inty was fixed and simply tegorised, and perhaps his most lastg ntributn was his sle, still ed today, which dividuals are rated om exclively heterosexual to exclively homosexual on a sle of 0 to ’s headle fdg was that “at least 37% of the male populatn has some homosexual experience between the begng of adolcence and old age”, meang physil ntact to the pot of asm.

He claimed that 13% of mal were predomately homosexual for at least three years between the ag of 16 and 55 (srg at least 4) and that 4% of mal were exclively homosexual all their liv (srg 6).

ONE TEN: A GAY MYTHOLOGY

In unmarried femal between the ag of 20 and 35, he claimed there was at least some homosexual experience 11%-20%, and 1%-3% were exclively Ksey terviews a woman for one of his sexual behavur surveys. Photograph: Bill Dellenback/APSo, 1973, when Voeller was puttg together the NGTF mpaign, he went back to Ksey’s timat for those wh predomantly homosexual experience (4 to 6 on his sle) for at least three years. But even cleaned-up data gave siar answers, and Voeller stuck to the 10%, statg 1990 that “the ncept that 10% of the populatn is gay has bee a generally accepted ‘fact’… As wh so many piec of knowledge (and myths), repeated tellg ma so.

Statistics had bee part of a polil battleground, wh heated arguments back and forth, but unfortunately whout any agreed fn: what was meant by “homosexual”? It was clear that jt askg people their sexualy uld give wildly differg answers pendg on how people terpreted terms such as “homosexual”, and so a more nuanced approach was adopted. I am cled to go wh Natsal, and my judgment would be that roughly one 80 adults unr 75 would nsir themselv gay/lbian and one 80 bisexual, but wh the balance towards bisexual women.

Photograph: Le MacGregor/RtersThere are around 9 ln LGBT (lbian, gay bisexual and transgenr) Amerins, roughly equivalent to the populatn of New Jersey, acrdg to a recent US review.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE GAY? LGBT STATISTICS.

But, jt as the UK, the route US Natnal Health Interview Survey (NHIS) up wh a lower figure for bisexualy than the dited sex surveys: seems plsible that there is ls willgns to acknowledge bisexual inty route surveys, whereas those who clearly intify themselv as gay or lbian are willg to be more upont sexual behavur n e all gre of tensy.

History might provi some explanatn: men now aged around 60 were teenagers the liberatg 60s, when homosexualy was legalised, while men who are now around 70 grew up when same-sex male behavur men was illegal and equently prosecuted. That’s jt what we fd reputable surveys: the last big US survey, 10% of women and 3% of men who intified themselv as “heterosexual” also reported a same‑sex the public health world the rather clumsy phrase “men who have sex wh men” (MSM) rather than “homosexual” or “gay” there is one characteristic that un female and male same-sex experience: the rat are two to three tim higher among those wh further tn than those wh no wh chang behavur, there’s been a nsistent shift attus to same-sex partnerships.

Gay issu are likely to rema central to social and polil bate this untry for many years to e, whether the form of gay rights referenda, gay service the ary, school curricula, or the adoptn of children by homosexual upl. However, to a startlg extent, both supporters and opponents of gay rights tend to accept as factual certa ias about the nature and prevalence of homosexual behavr, notns which realy range om the dub to the downright bog.

REFUTG THE '1 10 IS GAY' MYTH

” Perhaps the bt-known of the killer statistics is the timate for the number of homosexuals the general populatn, which, as every schoolboy knows, is “ten percent. ” This statistic is ccial for gay rights activists, for shows that homosexual legal and polil rights are a cril matter for a large portn of the populatn, and that a large number of dividuals are supprsg their sexual nature for fear of the nsequenc. In the 1980’s, the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force claimed to reprent “23 ln gay and lbian persons, ” while some activists (and the mass media) often plaed that the ten percent timate was nservative.

The, then, are the huge numbers of dividuals supposedly subject to social and legal discrimatn, who suffer when church refe to orda gay clergy or perform same-sex marriag, or when the Armed Servic exclu homosexuals. The suggtn of a huge “dark figure” of secret homosexuals is also nvenient, as someone who oppos gay rights n be dismissed as beg a closeted and self-hatg homosexual. There are untls problems wh the “ten percent” theory, but two objectns are cisive: one, that the rearch om which this figure is drawn is so flawed as to be worthls; and, two, that even the statistics that were produced should not be nsired as evince of a behavral ndn lled “homosexual.

“One ten” origated wh the celebrated Ksey study of the 1940’s, which argued that about ten percent of men were chiefly or exclively homosexual for at least three years between the ag of 16 and 55 (his claims for lbianism rat among women were far lower). Ksey and associat relied chiefly on volunteer subjects disproportnately drawn om metropolan areas, and active homosexuals were overreprented the sample, as were llege-ted dividuals. The size of the gay populatn beme an urgent issue durg the years bee of the need to terme the populatn at special risk om AIDS, and 1988, the timated number of gay mal New York Cy alone was revised downward by some 80 percent.