Inductivist

This Gallup poll is from a survey of over 300k Americans in 2017. You can see a dramatic uptick from 5.8% to 8.2% among Millennials identifying as LGBT over the past 5 years. Kinda dumb to lump the sexes: for all generations, 3.9% of men and 5.1% of women now identify as a sexual minority (table not shown). This is the first time I've seen women with higher numbers than men. Trendy trends on display.

With the Orlando shooting, I wondered about gun attitudes among gay people. The General Social Survey asked people if they favored a law requiring people to get a police permit before buying a gun. Here are the percentages in favor:

Men
Gay  82.9
Bisexual  64.3
Straight  65.6

Women
Gay  66.7
Bisexual 60.0
Straight 77.6

Among men, gays are more likely to favor a gun permit law. In fact, the vast of majority of them want it. In contrast, bisexual men are like straight men.

The pattern is different for lesbians: their numbers are similar to those of straight men. Bisexual women shows the LEAST support for gun permits of any group.

The overall pattern is consistent with the view that gay men tend to be psychologically like women, while lesbians are like men. Some of this could be due to the level of exposure to prenatal testosterone. Bisexuals in some ways seem hyper-masculine; turned on by anything that moves.

The question came up over at Steve Sailer's blog if Jewish women are more likely than other women to be lesbian. It wouldn't surprise me since data reported on this blog indicate that lesbians tend to be smarter than average, and they are more likely to come from wealthy homes. According to GSS data, here are the percentages of women by religion who say they are lesbian (sample size = 10,981):


Percent lesbian

Protestant 1.8*
Catholic 1.6*
Jewish 1.4
No religion 4.0

*significantly less than the no religion group


No evidence here for more Jewish lesbians.

From what I hear, straight Jewish women are plenty good at denying men sex.

Using GSS data, I calculated the mean father's socioeconomic index for women who are straight, bisexual, and lesbian (sample size = 8,551).


Mean Father's Socioeconomic Index

Straight 47.3
Bisexual 50.4
Lesbian 52.7*

*significantly higher than straight women


Compared to straight women, lesbians come from significantly higher status families. And for men (sample size = 7,867):


Mean Father's Socioeconomic Index

Straight 48.2
Bisexual 50.1
Gay 49.3

Gay men do not come from significantly higher status homes than straight men.

I'm not sure how to explain the pattern. Women from higher class homes might be more willing to admit lesbianism or might be more willing to adopt a lesbian orientation. There is evidence that lesbianism is more environmentally influenced than homosexuality. One might suggest that higher status fathers are more masculine (at least in some ways) and more likely to have masculine daughters.

There is a stereotype that female cops are lesbians. Is it true?

Using GSS data (sample size = 129) 15 percent of female law enforcement officers are homosexual or bisexual. According the the same survey, only 2.7 percent of all women are homosexual or bisexual. 

How about gay cops? Do you remember the officer from the Village People? Out of 102 male officers, ZERO are homosexual or bisexual.

Following the method I used in the last post, I estimated the relationship between sexual orientation and the Big Five personality traits for women (sample size = 2,094):

Standardized OLS regression coefficients

Extraversion .01
Negative emotionality .04*
Conscientiousness -.05*
Agreeableness -.03
Openness to experience .01

Compared to straight women, lesbians are more negatively emotional and less conscientious. Lower agreeableness falls just short of statistical significance.

Are straight guys better at math than gay guys?  Are lesbians better than hetero females?  The Add Health Study asked teens what grade they earned in math last term. A's were assigned a 4, B's a 3, C's a 2, and D's or lower a 1.  Here are the means:

Mean math score (sample size = 5,863)

Straight males 2.60
Gay males 2.30*
Straight females 2.75
Lesbians  2.67

*significantly lower than straight guys

While lesbians basically earn the same average math grade as heterosexuals, gay guys don't perform as well.

How close is the connection between lesbianism and feminism? You guys know how much I like to evaluate stereotypes. I looked at the GSS, and the only question with enough lesbian respondents is if you are in favor of abortion for any reason. Here is the breakdown:


Percent in favor of abortion on demand

Straight women 45.1
Bisexual women 73.5
Lesbians 57.6

So bisexuals have the highest number, probably because they are trendy types and actually have a chance of getting accidentally impregnated. (From a purely practical point of view, you'd expect straights to be most in favor of abortion on demand since they have the babies--this issue goes beyond practical considerations to the desire for a symbol of female autonomy). Anyway, while the lesbian estimate is high, about 40% of lesbians would not pass the basic litmus test for being feminist.

Lesbian leisure: As a follow-up to the post on the leisure activities of homosexual men, let's compare straight women with lesbians:


Percent who have done the activity in the past year

Attending sporting event
Straight women 55.4
Lesbians 33.3

Art museum
Straight women 42.2
Lesbians 37.5

Arts/Crafts
Straight women 51.8
Lesbians 47.5

Car race
Straight women 12.5
Lesbians 0.0

Camping
Straight women 43.4
Lesbians 41.7

Gardening
Straight women 67.0
Lesbians 58.3

Attending dance performance
Straight women 10.0
Lesbians 12.5

Classical music/opera
Straight women 17.4
Lesbians 28.4

Hunting/fishing
Straight women 29.9
Lesbians 25.0

Perform music/dance/theatre
Straight women 10.0
Lesbians 12.5

Playing sports
Straight women 60.7
Lesbians 58.3

See a movie
Straight women 78.2
Lesbians 85.0

Play musical instrument
Straight women 24.3
Lesbians 35.0

The two groups are more similar than I expected, but some of the differences are probably obscured when straight women tag along with the boyfriends or husbands to do more masculine activities like hunting. I'm surprised to see the two groups are roughly the same on playing sports. The number seems high for straights--there are probably a lot of walkers/joggers/gym-attenders in there. As a commentor wrote in the earlier post, differences might be larger if we could look at frequency. I see that lesbians do not fall behind straights in artistic interests--in fact, their numbers are bigger on most items.