OAN Abril Elfi
4:38 PM – Tuesday, July 11, 2023
According to a new poll from Brown University’s student paper, the number of students that identify as part of the LGTBQ+ community has doubled since 2010.
38% of students at the Ivy League school identified as homosexual, bisexual, queer, asexual, pansexual, questioning, or other than heterosexual. That number is five times the national rate for adults that are part of the community.
The poll was done by the independent student newspaper of the Rhode Island institution, the Brown Daily Herald, and it was published in June as part of a special Pride Month edition. It is unknown how many students participated in the survey.
When the survey was first conducted in 2010, only ‘heterosexual’, ‘gay’, ‘bisexual’, and ‘other orientations’ were available as options to students. ‘Queer’, ‘pansexual’, ‘asexual’, and ‘questioning’ responses weren’t introduced to the survey until spring 2022.
Bisexuality was reported by 53.71% of students who identify as LGBTQ+, up from the 41.01% in 2010.
According to the survey, the number of homosexual or lesbian students has grown by 26%, while the number of students who identify as bisexual has grown by 233%.
According to Eric Kaufmann, one of the researchers at the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology, sexual activity among those who identify as LGBTQ+ is not always growing at the same rate as LGBTQ+ identification.
“What we find instead is that identity is rising much faster than behavior, indicating that people with occasional rather than sustained feelings of attraction to the opposite sex are increasingly identifying as LGBT,” Kaufmann said. “There are two theories, that greater tolerance is allowing more to come out of the closet, or Bill Maher’s assertion that LGBT is trendy among some youth.”
Additionally, Kaufmann added how there is also a political motivation associated with challenging oppressors or dominant power structures for those in elite contexts, such as top universities.
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