May 31, 2012
theatlantic: Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are One in ten. It’s the name of the group that puts on the Reel Affirmations gay and lesbian film festival in Washington, D.C., each year. It’s the percent popularized by the Kinsey Report as the size of the gay male population. And it’s among the most common figures pointed to in popular culture as an estimate of how many people are gay or lesbian. What percentage of the population is actually gay or lesbian? A lower one than you might think — and a much, much, much lower one than most Americans believe. In surveys conducted in 2002 and 2011, pollsters at Gallup found that members of the American public massively overestimated how many people are gay or lesbian. In 2002, a quarter of those surveyed guessed upwards of a quarter of Americans were gay or lesbian (or “homosexual,” the third option given). By 2011, that misperception had only grown, with more than a third of those surveyed now guessing that more than 25 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian. Women and young adults were most likely to provide high estimates, approximating that 30 percent of the population is gay. Only 4 percent of all those surveyed in 2011 and about 8 percent of those surveyed in 2002 correctly guessed that fewer than 5 percent of Americans identify as gay or lesbian. Read more. this is really surprising

theatlantic:

Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are

One in ten. It’s the name of the group that puts on the Reel Affirmations gay and lesbian film festival in Washington, D.C., each year. It’s the percent popularized by the Kinsey Report as the size of the gay male population. And it’s among the most common figures pointed to in popular culture as an estimate of how many people are gay or lesbian.

What percentage of the population is actually gay or lesbian? A lower one than you might think — and a much, much, much lower one than most Americans believe.

In surveys conducted in 2002 and 2011, pollsters at Gallup found that members of the American public massively overestimated how many people are gay or lesbian. In 2002, a quarter of those surveyed guessed upwards of a quarter of Americans were gay or lesbian (or “homosexual,” the third option given). By 2011, that misperception had only grown, with more than a third of those surveyed now guessing that more than 25 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian. Women and young adults were most likely to provide high estimates, approximating that 30 percent of the population is gay. Only 4 percent of all those surveyed in 2011 and about 8 percent of those surveyed in 2002 correctly guessed that fewer than 5 percent of Americans identify as gay or lesbian.

Read more.

this is really surprising

4:57pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZNPdAyMVKbMG
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  1. wittgensteins-beetle reblogged this from theatlantic
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  6. crocodileblackpelvis reblogged this from theatlantic and added:
    Oh, so they could very easily put us all in re-education camps.
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  10. elithegirl reblogged this from theatlantic and added:
    this is really surprising
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  15. drop-in-the-ocean722 reblogged this from theatlantic and added:
    Very interesting. My first instinct that was that overestimating the number of people identifying as homosexual or...
  16. abszurdisztan reblogged this from theatlantic
  17. chrstphrwng reblogged this from theatlantic
  18. robbiebaldwin reblogged this from theatlantic and added:
    Yeah, pretty much. Finally, an honest report. A very small number of homosexuals exist overall next to the total...
  19. aidyn-spektra reblogged this from conconscorner
  20. tinytinytigers reblogged this from theatlantic and added:
    It’s because gay people are so loud, it always seems like there are more of them than there really are.
  21. conconscorner reblogged this from theatlantic
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