Thread by @epkaufm

1/15 A thread: The LGBT share among young Americans tripled in the last decade to 21%. Trans & non-binary identification may be up as much as 1000%. My new @CSPICenterOrg report shows that this is, as @billmaher suggested, shaped by social trends:
cspicenter.org/reports/born-t…

2/Data from @GSS_NORC shows that LGBT identification has been diverging from same-sex behavior. LGBT identity has risen 11 points among Americans under 30 since 2008, but same-sex behavior has only risen 4 points

3/ For example, bisexuals are close to half the LGBT total, and predominantly female. But the GSS shows that the share of bisexual women with exclusively male partners in the previous 5 years increased from 13% in 2008-10 to 55% in 2018-21

4/ We reached 'peak trans' in 2020. @TheFIREorg data on 57,000 undergraduates for 2020-21 shows that in 50 colleges sampled in both years, the non-binary share dropped from 1.5% to 0.85%, a statistically-significant decline, with younger less trans. UK & Canadian data show same

5/ The LGBT surge is socio-political, heavily siloed among very liberal young people. The GSS shows that the heterosexual share dropped about 20 points, to 66%, within the most liberal fifth of young people. It changed far less among others

6/ Political aspect most important for white and college-educated. @TheFIREorg data shows that a very liberal white female student who supports the idea of shouting down a speaker to prevent them speaking has around a 7 in 10 chance of being LGBT

7/ By contrast, almost none of the 1,360 very conservative male students with a Christian affiliation in the FIRE data call themselves LGBT

8/ 52% of students taking highly political majors such as race or gender studies identify as LGBT, compared to 25% among students overall. Those in the social sciences and humanities are about 10 points more LGBT than those in STEM

9/ Census data from the UK & Canada suggest surveys overestimate LGBT share by 2-3x. For instance, 26% of more than 5,000 18-20 year-olds on YouGov’s UK panel identify as LGBT but the census pilot estimates for 16-24 year-olds in 2019 show only 7.6% do ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulati…

10/ LGBT & the mental health crisis. Derek Thompson shows that 44 percent of US teens feel persistently sad or hopeless, 75 percent for LGBT teens. Besides the pandemic, why? theatlantic.com/newsletters/ar…

11/ The nexus of liberalism, sexuality & mental health needs analysis. A boundary-transgressing liberal culture could be destabilising for some. Very liberal people are *both* more likely to be LGBT & more likely to suffer mental illness
psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/unique…

12/ Assuming that becoming ‘very liberal’ involves both innate dispositions & exposure to messages, it's reasonable to assume that a culture which encourages boundary transgression & vulnerability could prompt people to ‘identify’ as sad or anxious, as with LGBT identity

13/ Thus GSS data, along with another study of high school students, finds that liberal and LGBT young people have experienced faster rates of mental health decline than others since 2010, at a time of growing toleration toward LGBT people

14/ In the wake of Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” Bill, I find school type does not matter much for LGBT identification. Suggests “grooming” is not occurring, but it's legitimate to debate whether schools are accurately representing the mix of lifestyles in a population /end