Comment by safety1st | Hacker News Reader

Comment by safety1st | Hacker News Reader

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The parent is probably referring to the Gallup poll in February which found a significant uptick in Americans who identify as LGBT+.

Gallup doesn't make any bones about it, the bulk of the uptick was in Gen Z women identifying as bisexual. They also didn't hesitate to observe that the bulk of bisexual-identifying people eventually settle into a heterosexual relationship.

So in point of fact we haven't had a 10x increase in homosexuality, we have had a surge in young women who are statistically likely to settle into hetero relationships declaring themselves as bi.

In my opinion it helps nobody to muddle or politicize the statistics. For me it's hard to not draw the conclusion that heterosexual young people want to be allies and are declaring themselves as bisexual and perhaps experimenting a bit as a show of support. Seems more likely than the idea that a full fifth of the human population that has been sexually oppressed since the dawn of history, but it's open to interpretation I suppose.

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/389792/lgbt-identification-tick...

> For me it's hard to not draw the conclusion that heterosexual young people want to be allies and are declaring themselves as bisexual and perhaps experimenting a bit as a show of support.

This makes sense until you understand the realities of the dating scene for bisexual women.

1. If you're young and have the highest rates of wlw your dating pool it's only 20% of women but 95% of men. So supposing bisexual women are choosing randomly among their dating pool it's not at all shocking they end up with way more men on average.

But it's not random and made even worse by

2. Women aren't taught how to approach other women and initiate a romantic relationship -- this is where the memes of "we've been best friends for years who are obviously pining over one another" and "useless lesbians" come from.

3. Women, having basically all experienced the discomfort (to put it lightly) of unwanted sexual attention from men, don't want to inflict that on others and so are more apprehensive hitting on other women.

4. And even if a woman does have the confidence she has to face the reality that 4/5 women she hits on will be straight and in general wlw are super apprehensive about hitting on people they don't already know are wlw. The rejection of confessing to your crush who turns out to be straight it mortifying and getting as is getting an "ew no" at a bar. It's fine, I'm fine.

5. Bisexuals in general tend to not hang around queer spaces as much.

6. Bisexuals tend to not have as much of a "gay aesthetic" as lesbians and so are harder to identify in social settings.

7. There are lesbians that wont date bisexual women because they have the same biphobia the rest of the world does, that they're straight women experimenting and will end up with a man.

Source: Am a bisexual woman.

This is a great comment, thanks. I can't find any fault with the logic of point #1 especially. Since there are a lot more heterosexual men out there than there are bi or lesbian women, bi women will be more likely to settle down with a man due to sheer numbers (and probably men are more aggressive at pursuing partnerships as well). Makes sense.

I still feel like there's something weird going on with the recent surge specifically in bisexuals. Most other LGBT identities are in the low single digits as a percent of US population and have ticked up slowly over time (L and G roughly doubled going from Gen X to Gen Z). But with bisexuals you have a 9x increase in the same time period. If it was just a matter of people in previous generations keeping their mouths shut because of discriminatory attitudes in society, you would think that bisexual identification would tick up at about the same rate as the other identities. Something else must be going on.

Good, and concise write up. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I agree.

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