Gay Statistics

[JrzGuy3]

Some things I was wondering about...

I think that we've all heard the statistic thrown around that ~10%-15% of the world's population is gay. I was wondering a bit about that though...

Is "gay" being used in this case as a blanket term for not straight (meaning it incorporates bisexuals as well)? For that matter, is it a catch-all for the G/L/B/T community, incorporating more people? Does it account for both gay men and lesbians (as well as bisexuals of each, if applicable)?

What about closetted people? Is it ~10%-15% of the world is "gay" or "openly gay"? Quotes used due to my indiscretion as to the precise meaning of "gay" here. If it accounts for people closetted and outed, what portion of that ~10%-15% is actually projected to be out about it?

:2cents: welcomed!

[arana]

They can't even get the countries census accurate, there's no way they could get an accurate estimate for gays. Plus as you say, with people still in the closet, they can only guess that number to add to the equation. I'm sure those numbers would be nothing close to what was true.

[leizy]

I'll encourage you to check my recent postings, under leizy, I cover some of this - in brief, the 10% number is from Kinsey, and is widely understood as an overestimate of omosexuality in general (but understand, he was reporting not identity, but behavior, or what people said they have actually done sexually). In general, across most studies, about 2-4 % of respondents identify as exclusively homosexual, and slightly more, around 3-6% identify as bisexual in one way or another. Higher numbers identify as heterosexual, but admit to a history of sexual contact or fantasies with the same sex, around 6-15% (15 is probably high).

If you add all those up, understanding there's a lot of overlap, people being counted twice, you end up maybe around 10-15% of people that are in the LGBT range, whether or not they identify as such...However, this is a complex area, because of issues such as identity, versus behavior, versus fantasy, versus emotional attraction, etc. It's also a politically hot issue - the gay community wants there to be more gays, and they're not too happy politically with bisexuals and straights that have gay sex occasionally, and of course the Right wants the results to indicate a lot fewer LGBT types, so they can pigeonhole them and ignore them...

cheers.
david

[BiBiologist]

What leizy said.
sam