Here is the study they are basing the article on:
this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2026
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Shhh, yes it does
The planet if all world leaders were lesbians:
Iirc only 10% of people are 100% straight or 100% gay, 80% are somewhere on the bi/mspec spectrum. Many of these people will identify as straight for various reasons.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/702206/lgbtq-identification-holds.aspx
Gallup estimates that 9% of U.S. adults personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual. This percentage is essentially unchanged from last year but remains more than double the 3.5% from 2012, the first year Gallup measured LGBTQ+ incidence. The current figure is also higher than readings of roughly 7% between 2021 and 2023.
Only 9% of US adults are not straight, of that 9%, more than half are bisexual:
You can get a sense of how many people really are not straight by how the younger generations and women disclose, with 23% of 18 - 29 year old adults identifying as some LGBT+ label compared to much lower numbers for older adults (down to 2% for 65+ year olds), and over 10% for women compared to half of that (5%) for men:
So predictably we can expect older adults and men are much less likely to be aware of their sexuality or to be honest or to disclose it (due to social stigma, hermeneutical injustice, etc.).
Even so, it's a lopsided figure still where it's more like 20% of folks are not cis and straight and 80% are cis and straight.
There is a big difference between asking someone to choose a label like straight or gay in a survey and asking if they ever think about sex/romance with someone of the same sex or would ever consider going into such a relationship.
I would identify as cis straight if it's just the multiple choice, but like bisexual with 90% straightness if I could choose a point on a spectrum.
I think that's a fair point and a reason to think there are far more people with a particular sexual orientation that are not aware of or do not identify with their sexual orientation than people with that sexual orientation who are aware and honest about their orientation.
The public health practices around targeting "men who have sex with men" as a demographic sort of confirms we're not in a neutral context where everyone who actually is homosexual will admit to themselves or others that they are homosexual (even when they're willing to admit as men they sleep with other men).
But this makes it very difficult to know what the real numbers are, and sometimes even how to define the sexualities, but regardless we don't have anything like the numbers being floated about only 10% of people are straight, at least as far as I know - like others I would like to see citations or evidence to back that claim.
I found this paper: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1529100616637616 (very low effort first citation on wikipedia) that discusses all the nuances and difficulties of estimating sexual orientation. And they mention some figures of 93% of men and 87% of women stating they are not even a tiny bit gay, so it does seem that the figures in the first comment are extreme.
Thought you might also want to know about this brilliant line in the paper: If one cannot reliably make a male human become attracted to other males by cutting off his penis in infancy and rearing him as a girl, then what other psychosocial intervention could plausibly have that effect?
(In response to 6/7 men who lost their penis at birth and were raised as girls ending up identifying as heterosexual men as adults. The last identifying as a bisexual woman.)
(In response to 6/7 men who lost their penis at birth and were raised as girls ending up identifying as heterosexual men as adults. The last identifying as a bisexual woman.)
As far as I am aware, the evidence seems to point to both gender identity and sexual orientation as being biologically fixed and genetic, so it's not surprising when you take a cis boy and raise them as a girl they end up transitioning back to being boys.
What people don't seem to appreciate or understand is this is pretty much what is happening to trans people, and the outcomes of doing this to cis people are similar to the outcomes we see in trans people (read: lots of drug abuse, self-harm, depression, anxiety, and suicides).
Indeed, in the paper it is used to dispute the bullshit claim that exposure to non-hetero media can turn your kid gay. I found the way they stated it interesting.
They didn't say 80% of people would admit it openly.
right, but how do they know 80% of people aren't straight, then? the question is about evidence and epistemic grounds
I think you're right, but Lirc is untrustworthy. Citations required.
[IIRC] is untrustworthy
Well, you're not wrong, LOL!
Also, the citation was probably Kinsey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_scale
IIRC is "if I recall correctly"
What did you think LIRC was? Lmao
Me being obtuse.
People should capitalize abbreviations. Like you did.
You see, that's a good reason to transition. Way less than half of all women find pre-transition me attractive.
Hot people are hot, regardless of their gender
it does however very much help if they have stonking great big massive honkeratonkeradoos
As a cis male I can assure you that my stonking great honkeratonkeradoos have not heralded a significant increase in the number of women approaching me for reasons of attractiveness.
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If scary why mommy?