{"id":47823,"date":"2012-06-11T11:30:41","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T16:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=47823"},"modified":"2013-11-08T04:18:20","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T09:18:20","slug":"americans-way-like-way-overestimate-the-number-of-gays-and-lesbians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/06\/11\/americans-way-like-way-overestimate-the-number-of-gays-and-lesbians\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans Way (Like, Way) Overestimate the Number of Gays and Lesbians"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the late 1940s and 1950s, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey estimated that about 10% of the population was something other than straight (and then, as now, a much larger number have same sex experiences or attraction). \u00a0Today scholars believe that\u00a0about 3.5% of the U.S. population identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual<\/a>, a considerably lower number. \u00a0Yet, a telling poll by Gallup<\/a> shows that Americans wildly — wildly<\/em> — overestimate the number of people who identify as non-heterosexual:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The table shows that more than a third of Americans believe that more than one out of every four people identifies as gay or lesbian. \u00a0Only 4% of Americans answered “less than 5%,” the correct answer.<\/p>\n

Estimates varied by demographics and political leaning. Liberals were more likely to overestimate, as were younger people, women, Southerners, and people with less education and income:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Interestingly, these numbers are higher than in 2008, when Gallup asked a similar questions. In that poll, only a quarter of the respondents choose “more than 25%” and more than twice as many said that they had “no opinion.”<\/p>\n

Gallup concludes: “…it is clear that America’s gay population — no matter the size — is becoming a larger part of America’s mainstream consciousness.”<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the late 1940s and 1950s, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey estimated that about 10% of the population was something other than straight (and then, as now, a much larger number have same sex experiences or attraction). \u00a0Today scholars believe that\u00a0about 3.5% of the U.S. population identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, a considerably lower number. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,29,34,55,253,85,693,54],"class_list":["post-47823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-class","tag-education","tag-gender","tag-history","tag-politics","tag-public-opinion","tag-sexual-orientation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47823"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58339,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47823\/revisions\/58339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}