Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Barrister]

It's self-identification data. It's not an absolute % of people who ARE a sexual minority, but the % of people who IDENTIFY as a sexual minority. Plenty of people who actually belong to a sexual minority don't identify as such for a myriad of reasons, and if you want to turn the table on that and play devil's advocate maybe some people who identify as a sexual minority are not really one (the "experimenting" crowd, so to speak).

The conclusions to be reached are pretty understandable, IMO. Younger people (and younger women more than men) nowadays feel much more free to identify as a sexual minority, given the current societal attitudes, people's upbringings nowadays, etc, while older people still keep the usual hang-ups on the topic that were historically present for our societies due to their upbringings, attitudes on thie issue during most of their lifetimes, etc.

This.

It's not wrong to ask about self-identification, but it's giving you different information than if you ask what gender your sexual partners have been in the last 12 months (or whatever).

Among the youngs being straight increasingly seems to be seen as being boring and traditional.  As such we've seen the rise of "queer" as an identity, but it's not clear to me that means necessarily much more than dressing in a traditionally unconventional manner.  Bi can have a similar sentiment - by claiming a Bi identity you get whatever cultural cache of being "LGBTQ+" gives you, even if you almost exclusively date opposite-sex partners.

Whereas amongst the olds there is still some stigma about being gay/lesbian so you have people refusing those labels even if their only sexual partners are same-sex.  "It doesn't count if I'm on vacation/drunk/experimenting/whatever".

But anyways - the fact that the numbers change so wildly depending on age tells us pretty clearly that how you identify has strong, almost overwhelming, cultural factors.  A lot, perhaps even most of those factors, are supressing the number in older people compared to what the "true" rate might be, but it shouldn't be surprising that cultural factors might be inflating the numbers among young people.

Last year my son Andrew mentioned in a conversation that one of his classmates is gay.  I didn't question him further on it - but he was 9 at the time and in grade 3.  There's almost zero chance a nine year old knows what their sexual orientation is, because at that age you have no idea what sexual attraction even is.

[Sheilbh]

Yes. Although only 15,000 people in the UK identified as "queer" but that was more common among 18-24 year olds as well (6,000).

I found the very low numbers of people identifying as "queer" really striking given the fairly healthy online discourse. It feels like a very real demonstration of the internet not being the world even if lots more young people are identifying as LGB+ in some way or other.

[Jacob]

Yes. Although only 15,000 people in the UK identified as "queer" but that was more common among 18-24 year olds as well (6,000).

I found the very low numbers of people identifying as "queer" really striking given the fairly healthy online discourse. It feels like a very real demonstration of the internet not being the world even if lots more young people are identifying as LGB+ in some way or other.

My understanding is that a non-trivial amount of LGBT+ folks - especially in the younger generation - consider "queer" a pejorative rather than a comfortably vague umbrella term.

[Sheilbh]

My understanding is that a non-trivial amount of LGBT+ folks - especially in the younger generation - consider "queer" a pejorative rather than a comfortably vague umbrella term.

To be honest, I thought it was the other way round.

The older generation remember "queer" being an insult, while the younger generation have grown up after "queer" theory and talk about "queering the text" etc. I think it's a little bit like "Latinx" where it has an academic and activist cachet that hasn't really percolated in the communities it's used to describe.

[garbon]

My understanding is that a non-trivial amount of LGBT+ folks - especially in the younger generation - consider "queer" a pejorative rather than a comfortably vague umbrella term.

To be honest, I thought it was the other way round.

The older generation remember "queer" being an insult, while the younger generation have grown up after "queer" theory and talk about "queering the text" etc. I think it's a little bit like "Latinx" where it has an academic and activist cachet that hasn't really percolated in the communities it's used to describe.

I don't fully understand queer as an identity term. Feels like it obscures more than it clarifies.

[Barrister]

Yes. Although only 15,000 people in the UK identified as "queer" but that was more common among 18-24 year olds as well (6,000).

I found the very low numbers of people identifying as "queer" really striking given the fairly healthy online discourse. It feels like a very real demonstration of the internet not being the world even if lots more young people are identifying as LGB+ in some way or other.

My understanding is that a non-trivial amount of LGBT+ folks - especially in the younger generation - consider "queer" a pejorative rather than a comfortably vague umbrella term.

So I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm hardly an expert on the language used by LGBT+ young folks (I note you left out the Q)...

but I've never heard that.  Obviously "queer" was initially used as a slur back in the day, then reclaimed  by LGBT folks, and certainly used in activist/academic types.  Has it really gone full circle to being a slur again?

[Jacob]

To be honest, I thought it was the other way round.

The older generation remember "queer" being an insult, while the younger generation have grown up after "queer" theory and talk about "queering the text" etc. I think it's a little bit like "Latinx" where it has an academic and activist cachet that hasn't really percolated in the communities it's used to describe.

Yeah I dunno... this is primarily based on random online discussions, so hard to tell exactly. My impression is that there's a younger generation who've come up significantly after the "queering the text" moment in academia, for whom that perspective is both past history and too academic. But like I said, online, so hard to tell both how accurate the impression is and how representative.

[Sheilbh]

I agree I think it can be useful as a bit of a catch-all adjective - "queer space", "queer film", "queer writers" - that cover multiples. But I'm not sure I understand it as a personal identity.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I dunno... this is primarily based on random online discussions, so hard to tell exactly. My impression is that there's a younger generation who've come up significantly after the "queering the text" moment in academia, for whom that perspective is both past history and too academic. But like I said, online, so hard to tell both how accurate the impression is and how representative.

Jake, there, subtly and savagely damning me as a middle aged gay

[Jacob]

So I'm not saying you're wrong - I'm hardly an expert on the language used by LGBT+ young folks (I note you left out the Q)...

LGTBQ+

... and I'm not saying I'm right, so no worries there

... but I've never heard that.  Obviously "queer" was initially used as a slur back in the day, then reclaimed  by LGBT folks, and certainly used in activist/academic types.  Has it really gone full circle to being a slur again?

That was my understanding for the longest time, but in the last few years I've come across folks - and seemingly younger ones - objecting to the term queer.

Like I said, it was online - so hard to tell how accurate and how representative - but it's happened a few times now. So I offered it up as a possible explanation.

[Jacob]

Jake, there, subtly and savagely damning me as a middle aged gay

 

[The Larch]

As someone who is almost completely outside the loop on discussions regarding gender issues (a topic in which I'm hesitant to sometimes speak on for lack of familiarity and knowledge), queer is one of the "fuzzier" terms I struggle to find a proper meaning to. Something similar happens to me with non-binary, for instance.

[garbon]

As someone who is almost completely outside the loop on discussions regarding gender issues (a topic in which I'm hesitant to sometimes speak on for lack of familiarity and knowledge), queer is one of the "fuzzier" terms I struggle to find a proper meaning to. Something similar happens to me with non-binary, for instance.

I said the same thing on queer.

[garbon]

I agree I think it can be useful as a bit of a catch-all adjective - "queer space", "queer film", "queer writers" - that cover multiples. But I'm not sure I understand it as a personal identity.

Yeah same. Like when Jameela Jamil came out as queer, I was like what does that mean?

[The Larch]

As someone who is almost completely outside the loop on discussions regarding gender issues (a topic in which I'm hesitant to sometimes speak on for lack of familiarity and knowledge), queer is one of the "fuzzier" terms I struggle to find a proper meaning to. Something similar happens to me with non-binary, for instance.

I said the same thing on queer.

I'm sure you still have a better understanding of the term than me.