Focus on the Family performed a disservice to its readership today when it raised the strawman argument that unnamed gay activists claim 10 percent of the population is gay — only to refute that long-abandoned claim with additional half-truths about a recent CDC survey that was discussed here at XGW.
Focus and the Traditional Values Coalition claim CDC support for their assertion that between one-half of one percent, and at most two percent, of the population is gay. But the survey didn’t say that. CDC reported that 2.3 percent of the sampled population identified “homosexual,” 1.8 percent identified as “bisexual,” 3.9 percent preferred some other label (including, presumably, “gay” or “queer”), and just 90.2 percent of the sample identified as heterosexual.
Focus never identifies these gay “10 percent” activists — to the extent that any ever existed, they appear have faded from existence 10-15 years ago.
But perhaps it’s time for a comeback. With 7 percent of the population identifying as something other than “heterosexual,” and up to 3.9 percent rejecting the conservative label “homosexual” as a description for same-gender attraction and relationship, gay activists may have ceded too much ground to the half-truth-tellers of James Dobson Inc.
What Others Say:
Good As You
So you criticize Focus for failing to name gay activists who claim 10% but then you say…
…without providing a source/occasion/document/speech where such numbers are quoted.
Mike, maybe (unnamed) gay activists have ceded too much ground. I didn’t.The CitizenLink article is blatantly misleading — it could as easily have titled “10% are not heterosexual”. We also get the myth of the Kinsey myth again… and no mention of the cleaned sample reported in 1979 (which is largely the same as the 1948 report even though it excludes prison populations etc).It is valid to use 10% when talking about the numbers with same-sex attractions/behaviour (eg when designing a sex ed. class). It is valid to use 3% when talking about the numbers that will be in a same sex domestic partnerships etc as an adults.Both these numbers may be used without fear of contradiction because they refer to different population groups (one of which includes the other). Personally, I’m using 5.2% (for men) from Laumann on most occassions now and this 2002 CDC data appears to agree.
Dan, Mike is quoting from the CitizenLink article. Lou Sheldon, specifically.I did pick up an occassion where Mike made a lazy ref. to unidentified “gay activists” ceding ground — but didn’t see that as a hanging offence 🙂
Only 1% of the population self-IDs as Native American and I doubt they’d (openly) support discriminating against them because “there are so few of them.”
Point well taken, grantdale.
In my defense 🙂 I’ll say that I didn’t identify or link to the “gay activists” who might have ceded political and demographic ground, because the World Wide Web didn’t exist in the early 1990s when (as I vaguely recall) a variety of U.S. activist groups and gay media relied upon the 10 percent statistic. (One newsfeature magazine even called itself “10 Percent.”) In the absence of pre-1996 online gay news or political media, there is nothing to link to, from that time period, and therefore no concrete online comparison can be made to be made to the relative absence of such claims in modern gay media and political literature.
I suppose I could have gone to the public library to dig up 15-year-old paperbound gay media and books — but thanks to antigay activists, the U.S. public libraries weren’t carrying much gay media back then.
Many anti-gay groups love to say that gay people should have limited rights because of numbers, but if only 2.3% of people are gay, that is larger than the number of Jews or Muslims in our society. No one would claim based on numbers that their rights should be limited. THis also counters the position that many take that exposure to homosexuality will make more people homosexual. It is apparent that it is not contagious.
While I have never been a 10% person, it is clear that a very large number of people in the US consider themselves non-heterosexual, and that is significant.
One thing that is problematic with the CDC numbers is that whenever sexuality is discussed, there is always a possibility that people do not tell the truth, especially if they fear reprimand (since the CD is government, the fear of authority is problematic). So, I suspect that the numbers are somewhat higher than the numbers presented.
In the end, antigay groups want to use numbers to deny rights. They don’t see the individuals in the numbers, so it is easy to suggest that people should not be part of the larger society. The funny thing is, the numbers in the end tend to support the gay rights position more.
Aaron, the answers were private – the person being interviewed answered the questions themselves on a computer – they weren’t being asked them directly be an interviewer. I suppose there are *some* indivduals out there that would have been uncomfortable with any information going to the government, but in my mind, that accounts for some of the “other” responses.
Annika: “I suppose there are *some* indivduals out there that would have been uncomfortable with any information going to the government, but in my mind, that accounts for some of the “other” responses.”
Or the 1.8% that didn’t answer the question at all.
Private responses in surveys and studies that deal with sexuality, drug use, and other personal concerns are still problematic. There are some who believe that, even with private response, that some reprimand is still possible. I agree that private response is always better, but one must assume that there are some (and not a high number) who will lie about status. Most researchers make some accounting for these problems.
To give an example, my school’s health department did a study on drug use at the school. They provided a private survey about drug use (the results did not closely match the national college stats). Six months later, another survey was done but with the purpose of finding out why people responded as they did. About 5% reported putting misleading information because they feared that school authorities would find out their responses and they would lose financial aid, be arrested, or expelled. A smaller percentage (2%) stated that felt they were in denial at the time regarding their drug use.
I am pretty sure that the CDC stats are pretty close to the national average, but one has to realize the number is probably slightly larger simply because a few may have felt uncomfortable (people are often scared of talking about sexuality in general–also, how many gay people will identify as straight or bisexual early on?). Also, the fact that some refused to answer the questions at all suggest some uncomfortable issues.
During the last census, I knew some gay people who were concerned that the government would be able to figure out who they were and would persecute them in the future, so they did not admit that they were in couples.
The famous Spitzer study is like this (although it was not private per se)–Were the exgays honest about their situation? Did people answer the way they did for political reasons? Who knows?
If people do not feel threatened by questions, they will answer honestly, but people often feel threatened by survey questions no matter how private.
Yeah, I get what you are saying, Aaron. I guess that without being inside everyone’s head, or hiring private investigators to follow all the subjects…this is the best we’re gonna get. It’s still better than the methadology for most studies that have to rely on self-reporting.
Somebody upthread brought up Kinsey. Just to remind you:
HOMOSEXUALITY: WHAT KINSEY REALLY SAID
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/scotts/bulgarians/new/What_Kinsey_Really_Said
You’ll have to scroll down a bit to get the statistics, but what he said was far more complex than 10% gay.
In days of yore, we used the 10% figure because it was the best we had (I remember seeing a T-Shirt that said “One out of ten cats prefer lesbians”). Frankly, I doubt any gay activist is all upset because the number is closer to a quarter of that.
But one thing can be said about us gay-folk. If 2.3% of guys and 1.3% of gals that identify as gay, we must be extraordinary citizens. After all, 4% of the voters in the 2000 election self-identified as gay.
Maybe heteros should look to gay citizens as role models. We could offer courses on good citizenship. Think James Dobson would be interested in starting such a project?
Annika, I agree. I think it is the best we have so far. One other question I have about the study, and I don’t know how they dealt with this, is that if they are trying to find a national average, how do they account for gay ghettos? Many gay people have flocked to certain areas of the country. West Hollywood, Miami, San Francisco have large gay populations. The populations in these places may be underrepresented by the survey. I am sure that the CDC had a way to account for this problem. Heterosexuals would not have localized populations. Does anyone know what was done to account for these areas?
In terms of pride, one thing the survey bore out is that gays practice much more safe sex than straights (although, again, that is really an area where people will misrepresent).
Aaron,For an involved discussion on use of PC-based surveys (vs face-to-face or paper) I’d suggest Tremblay. His site covers a great deal about the problem of getting an “honest” answer — it is truly HIDEOUS to read through, but there’s some very useful comments in there. This is a jump off point for you. Don’t blame me if it ruins your eyes…
What I never understand about this type of study is why it ignores what is already known about the subject. It would seem to me, more logical to begin with known facts. Use these to establish the possible parameters of the population. And then see if the survey results can be squared with what is already known.
The CDC lists something on the order of 650,000 gay men who have died of AIDS. Adding those infected, gives a figure over 1,000,000. Based on what one regards the infection rate among gay men to be, which is I suspect, partially knowable, would provide an estimate of the number of gay men. Independent of any survey. Based on this, it seems the 2.3 percent is unrealistic. That yields a figure of something on the order of 3.5 million gay men (2.3% of a male population of about 150 million.) Which would mean that something above 10% of the gay male population lives with AIDS. Which, IMHO, can be shown to be false.
Nor can this be reconicled with attendance at public events. Gay Pride events in NY, Chicago and SF alone draw upwards of 2 million attenders. According to this survey, virtually half of all gay men in the US attend these three events. Which can again be shown to be false. If you add up the attendence at all US Gay Pride events, you get a number far higher than the figures allow for.
So, I find this approach not very plausible or realistic.
Hi Dalea (haven’t seen you for awhile — been on holidays?)You know, if you keep up this common sense approach to interpreting survey results you’ll go crazy :)The 2.3% (as a measure of all those who are same-sex attracted men) is implausible for the very reasons you pointed out. I wish survey reports would examine their findings against such common sense, but few do.Sorry I don’t have an online ref. but even at the peak of HIV infection (during the mid-late 80’s) it was estimated that less than 15% were HIV+.Infection rates per 1000 have fallen since then, and it appears somewhere around shy of 5% using a total pop. of behaviourally gay/bi at 5.2% of 145 million adult men. (using 1 million as HIV+, of which 2/3 are men and 50% of them acquired it via M2M sex).If every gay/bi/experimental man and woman turned various shades of blue tomorrow, this “debate” about numbers would rapidly end…
Hi Grant and Dale, just have not had much to say lately. I am still mystified why this totally unscientific method is use.
Using the just under 15% rationale, what I see is that this works out neatly to 14% plus change, or one in 7. Which gives us a gay male population of about 7 million. This figure accords with the marketing surveys, which have always impressed me as rational and scientific.
I still am wondering why this method of calling up people and asking about their sex lives has any credibility.
Annika at September 24, 2005 04:07 PM
Aaron, the answers were private – the person being interviewed answered the questions themselves on a computer – they weren’t being asked them directly be an interviewer.
It is incorrect to assume–as you appear to be doing here–that transmissions from a computer are “private.” When you log on to the Internet, you are assigned by your ISP via the Internet Protocol an IP address, which is transmitted in any message that you send. It would be very easy for the recipient to trace a communication back to your computer, if they want to.
There are easier methods for the backward tracing using “cookies,” by the way, which are stored on your computer–usually without your knowledge–when you access a web site.
There are two different statistics in play: Those who take being gay as in identity, and those who behave homoseuxally. They are far from the same population, with those who identify with being gay a smaller subset.
I think asking people their identity has political merit, but when it comes to epidimiology, it has no relevance whatsoever. Yet it can be relevant when crafting health care messages because even though someone is participating in homosexual sex, he/she may not consider himself/herself to be gay, and thus conclude that the health care message is not relevant.
FOTF and others exploit this by ignoring the 6-15% who behave homosexually, and talk about only the 2-3% who claim a gay identity. That’s where Dalea’s math exercise exposes the fallacy of their tactic.
In illustrative point: If we are to use the 2.3% number, it’s around 6.4 million people in the U.S. That’s more people than live in some states! Would they recommend discriminating against the population of an entire state? I doubt it.
People, people, people.
Stop and read the survey before you argue with what you think it says. For example:
“It is incorrect to assume–as you appear to be doing here–that transmissions from a computer are “private.” When you log on to the Internet, you are assigned by your ISP via the Internet Protocol an IP address, which is transmitted in any message that you send”
The survey was not over the internet.
Also, I can’t follow your assumptions.
Where are the references for your HIV numbers? Is it all that surprising that up to 10% of gay men are infected? That doesn’t shock me.
Who says that 6-15% have same-sex behavior?
Where is the support for the attendance for gay pride events (which I find HIGHLY suspect). And why would we think that only gay people attend (the attendance at WeHo is VERY mixed with lots of straight folks).
And, finally, I can’t follow your math. I’m an accountant, for heaven’s sake, and if I can’t follow it, I’m sure that others can’t.
Lets leave the unsupported funny figures to the anti-ex/gays. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but without support and clear calculations I can’t be persuaded (and I would actually prefer you be right).
Sorry, my 6%-15% was not from this particular report. Well, the 6% behavioral figure was, but others give much higher figures. Also, I’d have to dig, but I suspect the 15% figure was not a random-sampled population. But I’m pretty sure that something on the order of 10% was cited in at least one (Laumann perhaps?).
I’ve been looking at many reports and the only things that are consistent about them are:
1) Behavior questions often yield a figure that is at least twice as high as identity questions.
2) Numbers vary widely — so widely that I suspect that nobody will ever nail it down precisely.
Ah, here it is:
“Up to 20% of adult men report that they have had a homosexual experience”
Seidman, SN & Rieder, RO; “A review of sexual behavior in the United States”, Abstract at https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/151/3/330.
One other question I have about the study, and I don’t know how they dealt with this, is that if they are trying to find a national average, how do they account for gay ghettos?
That is one criticism I have repeatedly read about nationwide surveys. Current government surveys create their sample using the current urban/rural breakdown of the US population – so they get representative samples of the entire population. However, we suspect the gay population is not distributed the same as the US population as a whole. Gay adults – particularly those open about their orientation – tend to congregate in urban areas, and may be under-respresented in surveys getting a representative US sample.
Voting and consumer surveys have consistently given a 4 – 6% range for gay self-identity among adults.
Hey guys and gals,
I have a homework assignment for you 🙂 Read the report (no offense, I respect your opinions, but we need to be talking about the same thing)
The difference between the 20% figure you quote above and the 6% in the survey is probably due to the specific nature of the questions in the survey. The CDC asked specifically about oral and anal sex. It could very well be true that a percentage of the population (perhaps the missing 14%) has had a same-sex experience in their life that was neither of those two experiences. I’ve certainly had same-sex experiences that were neither oral nor anal.
Also, I’m certain that you agree that simply because one has had a sexual experience at some point, that doesn’t mean they are gay, by anyone’s definition. Consistent or ongoing same-sex behavior either exclusive on in concurrance with opposite sex behavior might be an indicater of either being gay or bi. But those numbers as reported by the CDC seem fairly consistent with the reporting about identity.
1.6% of males indicated that they had only had sex with men in the past year while another 2.9% indicated that they had had sex with both male and female in the past year. I conceed that often gay men go over a year without sex – or choose other sexual acts other than oral or anal – yet anal or oral in the past year is not a bad indicator. Combining the two, you get 4.6% which is not too far from the 4.1% you get by combining self-identifying gays (2.3%) and bis (1.8%).
One of the things I like about this study is that the numbers seem to add up whichever way you go to identify and label orientation.
If I had to bet my life on it (and the answers could actually be known) I would bet around 3-4% of guys are actually gay and another few percent are bi (assuming bi actually is hard wired – if not, add it to the gay pile).
But, I don’t have to bet my life and only need this info to refute lies by the phobes. To do so, I can conservatively say 2.3% gay and 1.8% bi and happily move on. To argue for higher, you’d have to have better support than we can currently give.
cpt,
for the past two presidential elections voting in the us has come in at 4%. That could indicate:
1. that gays are more likely to vote
2. that at least 4% of the population is gay
3. that fewer options were available to self-identify (maybe they couldn’t choose bi or other)
4. that the extrapolation methods chosen by the poll were faulty
5. something entirely else.
I’d have to go back and look at consumer surveys to comment on them.
Timothy, I think you and I are in violent agreement. 😉
I read the CDC report and agree with everything you said. I read the Siedman report (full report, not just the abstract, based on a later GSS survey than that used by Laumann) and it differs possibly, as you say, for the structure of the questions, methodology, or other reasons.
Regardless of the numbers or whatever, what I was trying to get to in my clumsy way was this: identifying as “gay” and having sex with the same gender are two completely different things no matter how you measure it. While none of the surveys agree on percentages, they all agree on this point. MSM/WSW does not equal gay; behavior is not intrinsically linked to identity, no matter how consistent, ongoing or exclusive it may be. Someone may be having sex in the men’s room every night of the week, but that still doesn’t mean that he’s thinks he’s gay, especially if he’s married. There are more MSMs/WSWs than there are people who identify as being gay (or even bisexual).
Part of Focus et al.’s efforts to minimize the numbers is political — claiming there are too few of us to bother granting rights to or that our influence is out of proportion to our numbers. Fair enough, but of course human rights aren’t dependent on numbers. But I don’t mind them saying 2-3% of the population identifies as gay. The research backs that up.
Unfortunately, that is not what they are saying because part of Focus et al.’s efforts to minimize the numbers is slanderous; saying that only 2-3% of us are responsible for a whole host of bad things, which is flat out wrong. It’s not the 2-3% that’s cruising in the parks and rest stops, molesting children, etc. It’s somebody else. And even if they are MSM’s, most are adamantly not part of our 2-3%. An awful lot of them are married according to police reports. I doubt that many of them check the “I’m gay” box on the survey, even though they are definitely MSM, some maybe consistently or exclusively so.
I think this point is lost on a lot of people. But this distinction is crucial whatever the numbers.
Oy! Sorry for the rant. Time for a margarita people!
Jim,
So elequent as always.
There’s something comforting in the knowledge that those with whom I find myself agreeing show principled thought, while those with whom I can’t seem to find common ground want to “bust this puppy wide open”.