And yes, they recognise that the findings in such a poll are probably deeply flawed, so don't write in.
Some other interesting findings to note...
"Don't knows/Won't says" still outnumber LGBTs in every category - if they were discounted the figure comes out at about 6%.
Age showed the most marked differentials: 6.4% of 18-29s, to 1.9& of 65+.
Women were slightly more likely to identify as LGBT than men.
"Nonwhite individuals" were more likely to identify as LGBT.
College graduates are less likely to identify as LGBT than those with a high school education only.
Similarly, the more you earn, the less likely you are to identify as LGBT.
Fascinating stuff.
Most reliable recent surveys have claimed the same - only gay marketeers and others with a vested commercial interest still claim higher figures.
But the last four points - which are more reliable markers of group difference and self-identification - turn conventional wisdom upside down.
Looks like, contrary to myth, we are not all bourgeois now.
• And here's Fagburn's formula for working out how many gay men there are in the UK, which came up with a similar figure to the above.
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Does Fagburn's estimate of the number of gay men take account of those of us who are celibate?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that would change the maths, if that's what you mean, but I'll have to think about it when my brain's woken up.
YOUR FORMULA IS BUNK, FAGBURN!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteFFS!!!!!!!
The fact you came up with a figure roughly in the same ballpark as this one is not a cogent defence of your formula. You could probably devise all sorts of bonkers formulas that result in the same percentage - that doesn't prove those formulas are correct any more than it does yours.
Jesus wept.
Thanks.
DeleteTrying to come up with a figure for this is always obviously going to be a deeply flawed guesstimate, but some of them are based on extrapolation from your actual statistics, though, so may have some more credibilty.
thanks again.
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Sorry to be CAPS LOCK-y, it's just this whole subject really bothers me because of the flaws in EVERY method used.
DeleteI don't know why but it really bugs me.
I'm interested in knowing the true figures like all of us.
Also, I keep reading these stupid cunts using these figures to support their homophobia, which is a side-issue, because if the figures really are low then that should be reported obviously and their homophobia is still irrational and irrelevant whatever the true number.
But it all bothers me too much.
xxx
It's something we can't come up with a reliable figure for.
DeleteBut that doesn't mean one's "guesses" can't be educated.
But they're not guesses, are they?
DeleteThey're all various formulas are systems of extrapolation which are ALL DEEPLY FLAWED - therefore useless.
Yet they're all put forward as "This is a rough estimation of how many gay men there are" AT BEST. Mostly, they're put forward as "This is how many gay men there are" period.
Educated guesses are useless based on "deeply flawed methods".
Is it not best to say that in the current climate and given the meagre statistics we can currently compile, all with deep flaws - it's a figure that we cannot come to with anywhere near reliable accuracy?
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent"
No. The media often present them as "This how many gay men there are" stories.
ReplyDeleteThe researchers etc usually do no not.
I keep saying they're deeply flawed - eg in the Gallup polls "Don't knows/Won't says" usually outnumber the LGBTs - but some are less deeply flawed than others.
Certain researchers use these flawed results for practical reasons and because it's the best we can do - I doubt any of them would suggest they're in any way accurate as to determining in any way how many gay men there are in the world.
DeleteIt should be left as the domain of researchers and not stretched out to ludicrous figures purporting to be what they're not by anyone - media and anyone else - who do not need some kind of figure for practical applications.
The rest should say: this is a figure that we cannot get anywhere near being accurate and that's that.
Sorry one other point I wanted to make is that the point you make here about variations in how deeply flawed these methods are seems moot to me because the problem is that no one simply cannot know how many gay men there are in the closet, how many gay men do not get tested, how many gay men who wouldn't even come out to themselves etc.
DeleteIt could be a HUGE number. We just don't know and THERE'S NO WAY OF KNOWING and there;s no way of making an educated guess as to what these numbers are.
That's an enormous flaw in any attempt to get an accurate figure of this.
So much so, that I think any method is only going to scratch the surface, because none of them can take account of that portion in any remotely accurate way. They may as well pull a figure out of nowehere.
Or maybe not.
But we cannot know one way or the other. Okay that's it from me.
Sorry xxx
"In the current climate and given the obvious HUGE flaws in any method of trying to work this out, the best we can say is this: WE CANNOT KNOW"
ReplyDeleteSurely?
Oh, we won't settle this, one way or the other.
Sorry, Fagburn.
I'm off to bed.
'night.
Love you!!!
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I keep saying it's all going to be flawed, so do you, so what is point.
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to quote Wittgenstein at me - maybe he tried to understand "stuff" and admitted it/human understanding was often going to be flawed...
"Scepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can exist." 6.51
PS I have no idea what this means.
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