Quite often a typical newsgroup "conversation" goes something like this:
Righteous Queer: All we want are the same rights everybody has.
Homophobic Troll: No, only 3-4% of people who have your disease and we should cure it and be rid of you and your kind.
Righteous Queer: 1%? Are you nuts! In my social group it is more like 90%, and anyway, studies say 10%!
Homophobic Troll: Be happy I gave you 3-4%, I think it's more like 1%!
Putting aside the fact, for a moment, that moving off on this tangent effectively ends the discussion as to the basic rights we seek, it does pose a question of interest:
How many of us are there?
The question arose after Kinsey started The Institute for Sex Research and published his findings regarding sexual behavior in males and females, that included statistics that suggested that 10% of the population is gay/lesbian.
Since those findings, others have attacked both the methods or, using the statistics, rework the conclusions of the Kinsey studies. Others, with their own agendas, manage to compile statistics with findings that the gay/lesbians compose closer to 1% of the population. All told, there have been many, many studies over the years, many using limiting questions in order to minimize the percentage found.
What I want to know is why do we care?
It is pretty obvious, at least to me, that in light of the continuing discrimination against gays and lesbians, many would not respond truthfully to any survey regarding their orientation.
But even beyond that - why do we care?
Yes, it is nice to know we're not alone, but we know we're not alone. Heck, you're here. I'm here. That's two of us right there, eh?
If only one person in the country was female, would that mean that discriminating against women (well, woman) was all right?
Of course it wouldn't, just as it is not proper to discriminate against Jews or blacks or disable people or.... none of whom comprise any statistically significant portion of the population.
So far as I'm concerned, I'm curious as to what the number might be - but I know that until society changes sufficiently that all will feel secure in coming out (or we have a "Lavender Day" - my other half's favorite notion - where one day a year people change to shades of lavender based on their orientation), we'll never know.
What is important is that we remember the basic precepts - "Liberty and Justice for All." That's not "Liberty and Justice for any group which represents at least X percent of the population."
In pride,
Deborah