National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior
(NSSHB)

In a study sure to put the right wing into vapor fits, the Indiana University has released a new study putting the numbers into a range that officially expands the percentages to what we already knew.

7% of women, and 8% of men identify as LGBT.

(anybody out there understand statistics?  Do they add, to make the total 15%, or are they simply +/-8%?)

Update: The Advocate is adding them, saying 15%. (I always thought it was in that ball park.) But on the other hand, lots of comments on the Facebook page taking The Advocate to task for a math fail. So we’re back to 7.5%? That’s still a decent number, around 24,750,000 “out” LGBT Americans!

Oh, and teenagers aren’t getting it on as much as popular culture would have us think.

Long resisting contradictory information, right-wing and religious organizations and individuals have consistently maintained that gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people made up only about 1% – 2% of the population.  You might be excused for believing that, at least in the 20th century, since the 1 or 2 percent might seem reasonable if you thought the only gay people out there were readily identifiable as such.  You know, the stereotypical gay man or lesbian woman.  Boy, times have changed!

Since I came out, to both myself and in general,  I had felt the ‘accepted’  percentages were way too low.  I was of the mind (and still am, even with this study) that the number was actually more in the range of 10% or more.  Since there are still a lot of people in the closet (hello Visalia! I’m talking to you!) I’m still convinced the number of LGBT folks is higher than official recognition.

Some numbers to compare:

American Jews = 2%

Blacks = 12.4%

Asian = 4%

Hispanic = 14%

Source: Wikipedia (so take the information with a grain of salt, but the numbers should be close)

Check out the Indiana University’s website for the report.  There’s a lot of information about Americans and sex, including the part about teenagers not getting it as much as some might think.