Sexual orientation being "shoved down our throats"

[billvon 2,384]

"They're shoving it down our throats!"

That came up in a recent Facebook 'discussion' about LGBT representation in popular media.  The other guy's argument was that only like 2% of Americans were LGBT but like half of the characters on TV were gay, and that was the evil woke media shoving it down our throats.

So I took the opportunity to do some research.

First off, percentage of LGBT people.  A Gallup poll taken recently showed that 7% of Americans considered themselves LGBT.  That number seemed suspicious based on my experience, both because it seems a little low, and because a pollster asking someone "are you gay?" is less likely to be answered truthfully.  (Consider a cold call where someone asks you "have you ever stolen from work?"  That poll will likely lead to an artificially low number, since people will consider the chances that that information gets back to their employer.)

So I did a little more research.  A second study found that when "normal" polls are taken, they underestimate the percentage of LGBT people for that reason.  They used a poll employing "item count technique" that hid their actual responses.  Here's an (overly simple) example question:

"If you are male, add 1 to your number.  If you are Hispanic, add 1 to your number.  If you are gay, add 1 to your number."

That way each individual does not tell the pollster if they are gay or not.  But since the percentage of males and the percentage of hispanics in America is well known, those biases can then be mathematically removed from the total, giving a more accurate percentage.

Using this method, pollsters determined that about 15% of men and 20% of women in the US were LGBT.  This also seems more in line with my own experiences.  As an example, the Perris women's 8 way team Moxie was more than half LGBT, and that's a lot more likely if 20% of the women skydivers there are LGBT as opposed to 7%.

Note that that study was done in 2013, so it's not that recent.  But I don't think the percentage of LGBT people in society changes much over time.

Then I went back the Gallup poll.  They broke it down by age, and sure enough, over 20% of people 25 and under reported as being LGBT.  This makes sense based on the fact that they grew up during a time where gay marriage was legal and there was far less stigma associated with being gay.  When I look at my cohort (Gen X) the reported percentage was 4%.  As a cohort that grew up during a time when being called gay was a big insult, and "smear the queer" was a popular game, this makes sense.

The next question was whether LGBT people were over-represented in TV.  For that I went to FOX News; I figured they were going to inflate the number as much as possible to push that particular right wing talking point.  Sure enough I found a story that talked about how gay characters were at an "all time high."  ABC had the most gay characters at 5%.

(This was based on a study from 6 years ago, so if anyone has newer numbers, feel free to post them here.)

So I discovered that yes indeed, a specific sexual orientation is being shoved down our throats, and networks are doing this by over-representing straight characters in their shows.

https://www.nber.org/.../working_papers/w19508/w19508.pdf

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/study-number-of-gay-characters-on-tv-at-an-all-time-high

https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx

[jakee 1,254]

The whole ‘shoving it down our throats’ thing used to be much more common than it is now, but was only ever code for one thing - being visible at all. 

[riggerrob 558]

My impression is that minorities - including LGBTQ+++ - were under-represented in the past. Now they are over-represented. Sometime in the future, the numbers of minority characters in media will eventually match the numbers of LGBTQ++ in society.

These waves and changes in fashion are tough on an old fart like me who remembers when "gay bashing" was a fashionable pass-time in high school.

[GeorgiaDon 340]

A while ago when I visited family in Canada I noticed that most of the couples shown on commercials on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) TV shows were same sex.  I really don't care, and certainly I wasn't offended, but it just kind of stood out that you hardly ever saw a straight couple.  The CBC is funded by the federal government and I suppose that had something to do with it.  If my extended family in Canada is anything to go by, an estimate of ~20% LGBTQ is fairly reasonable.  I think there is less of a stigma associated with non-straight sexual orientations in Canada (although I'm sure there is still some) and it seems (at least as far as my family is concerned) that people don't feel a need to stay in the closet.

Edited December 15, 2022 by GeorgiaDon

[normiss 620]

3 minutes ago, GeorgiaDon said:

A while ago when I visited family in Canada I noticed that most of the couples shown on commercials on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) TV shows were same sex.  I really don't care, and certainly I wasn't offended, but it just kind of stood out that you hardly ever saw a straight couple.  The CBC is funded by the federal government and I suppose that had something to do with it.  If my extended family in Canada is anything to go by, an estimate of ~20% LGBTQ is fairly reasonable.  I think there is less of a sigma associated with non-straight sexual orientations in Canada (although I'm sure there is still some) and it seems (at least as far as my family is concerned) that people don't feel a need to stay in the closet.

Interracial couples and people of color seem to be in more and more commercials in the US lately as well.

Good.

Seems more like real life. Humans are everywhere.

[gowlerk 1,903]

36 minutes ago, normiss said:

Interracial couples and people of color seem to be in more and more commercials in the US lately as well.

This is what causes conservatives to cry bitter tears about "wokeness" changing their world. Just seeing it unhidden melts their poor little snowflake brains and sends them into a tizzy.

[JoeWeber 2,294]

On 12/14/2022 at 3:53 PM, billvon said:

"They're shoving it down our throats!"

That came up in a recent Facebook 'discussion' about LGBT representation in popular media.  The other guy's argument was that only like 2% of Americans were LGBT but like half of the characters on TV were gay, and that was the evil woke media shoving it down our throats.

So I took the opportunity to do some research.

First off, percentage of LGBT people.  A Gallup poll taken recently showed that 7% of Americans considered themselves LGBT.  That number seemed suspicious based on my experience, both because it seems a little low, and because a pollster asking someone "are you gay?" is less likely to be answered truthfully.  (Consider a cold call where someone asks you "have you ever stolen from work?"  That poll will likely lead to an artificially low number, since people will consider the chances that that information gets back to their employer.)

So I did a little more research.  A second study found that when "normal" polls are taken, they underestimate the percentage of LGBT people for that reason.  They used a poll employing "item count technique" that hid their actual responses.  Here's an (overly simple) example question:

"If you are male, add 1 to your number.  If you are Hispanic, add 1 to your number.  If you are gay, add 1 to your number."

That way each individual does not tell the pollster if they are gay or not.  But since the percentage of males and the percentage of hispanics in America is well known, those biases can then be mathematically removed from the total, giving a more accurate percentage.

Using this method, pollsters determined that about 15% of men and 20% of women in the US were LGBT.  This also seems more in line with my own experiences.  As an example, the Perris women's 8 way team Moxie was more than half LGBT, and that's a lot more likely if 20% of the women skydivers there are LGBT as opposed to 7%.

Note that that study was done in 2013, so it's not that recent.  But I don't think the percentage of LGBT people in society changes much over time.

Then I went back the Gallup poll.  They broke it down by age, and sure enough, over 20% of people 25 and under reported as being LGBT.  This makes sense based on the fact that they grew up during a time where gay marriage was legal and there was far less stigma associated with being gay.  When I look at my cohort (Gen X) the reported percentage was 4%.  As a cohort that grew up during a time when being called gay was a big insult, and "smear the queer" was a popular game, this makes sense.

The next question was whether LGBT people were over-represented in TV.  For that I went to FOX News; I figured they were going to inflate the number as much as possible to push that particular right wing talking point.  Sure enough I found a story that talked about how gay characters were at an "all time high."  ABC had the most gay characters at 5%.

(This was based on a study from 6 years ago, so if anyone has newer numbers, feel free to post them here.)

So I discovered that yes indeed, a specific sexual orientation is being shoved down our throats, and networks are doing this by over-representing straight characters in their shows.

https://www.nber.org/.../working_papers/w19508/w19508.pdf

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/study-number-of-gay-characters-on-tv-at-an-all-time-high

https://news.gallup.com/poll/332522/percentage-americans-lgbt.aspx

When you go I'm going to have you bronzed. You are simply too valuable to let go. I'll pay but if anyone here wants to commit to a percent, that's awesome.

[billvon 2,384]

2 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

When you go I'm going to have you bronzed. 

That sounds less than fun.  Maybe I could be breaded.

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

9 hours ago, billvon said:

That sounds less than fun.  Maybe I could be breaded.

Orange glaze would be much more appropriate.

 

https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tLP1TewMMioMjc3YHRg8OJPKU3OVkhUyFHPL0rMS08FAII7COk&q=duck+a+l'orange&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS910US910&oq=Duck+a+L&aqs=chrome.1.0i131i355i433i512j46i131i433i512j69i57j0i512j46i512j0i512l5.7214j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[airdvr 197]

My only problem is with young kids who are confused and the enabling parents.  The kids aren't mature enough to make those kinds of decisions.

[wmw999 2,117]

33 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Orange glaze would be much more appropriate

Isn’t that what happened to Trump?

Wendy P. 

[wolfriverjoe 1,340]

17 minutes ago, airdvr said:

My only problem is with young kids who are confused and the enabling parents.  The kids aren't mature enough to make those kinds of decisions.

What do you mean?

I figured out that I liked girls in 6th or 7th grade. It wasn't a 'choice' or a 'decision'.
It was a realization.

For a kid to realize they like the same sex (or the opposite one), or to come to the understanding that they don't 'fit' in the body they were born with isn't all that different.

To take permanent, life altering measures in that direction is not appropriate, but it also isn't something that happens often.

The key is accurate, professional diagnosis and treatment.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/what-medical-treatments-do-transgender-youth-get

 

Note: I have a small amount of personal experience in this. My former nephew is now my niece. She is in no way, shape or form 'confused'. And her parents (my sister and her husband) are far from 'enabling'. The transition is entirely hormones & hormone blockers, which is not permanent. 
They have an amazing therapist and an excellent endocrinologist. My (now) niece is far better, far happier and far more stable as a female that ever before. 

This is NOT any sort of 'fantasy' or 'fashion statement'. 

[DougH 270]

On 12/14/2022 at 5:37 PM, jakee said:

The whole ‘shoving it down our throats’ thing used to be much more common than it is now, but was only ever code for one thing - being visible at all. 

"It makes me feel 'something', so I don't want to see it"

It is almost like they have this deep seated fear that keeping gays off TV is the only thing that is keeping them from driving a Prius, downloading Grindr, and voting party line for the Democrats. Their thirst has really resolved since Will and Grace wrapped up, and they don't want to go back to that place.

[DougH 270]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

My only problem is with young kids who are confused and the enabling parents.

What the fuck does that mean? Do you think there are "enabling parent" who are influencing or enabling their young children to be gay or transgendered, and when you add gay TV representation there is some sort of critical mass being reached?  

That makes as much sense as the piece of shit religious types that think they can program children back to being a heterosexual, and leave horribly broken people in their wake.

I am way more concerned about people programming hate, repression, bigotry, than I am about gay TV characters swaying my two young boys as they grow up over the next two decades.

The boogeyman goes to church on Sunday, it isn't the gay couple down the street.

Edited December 16, 2022 by DougH

[billvon 2,384]

2 hours ago, airdvr said:

My only problem is with young kids who are confused and the enabling parents.  The kids aren't mature enough to make those kinds of decisions.

Can you give an example?

[airdvr 197]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

Can you give an example?

I realize they need help but physically changing their gender should wait.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-care/

Levine was right, insofar as healthcare providers generally agree that anyone with gender dysphoria has a right to supportive care, whether that entails social transition, or counseling and therapy, or medical interventions. But her statement glossed over deep fissures that have opened within the gender-care community over the way treatment has evolved in the United States as new patients pour into clinics.

A growing number of gender-care professionals say that in the rush to meet surging demand, too many of their peers are pushing too many families to pursue treatment for their children before they undergo the comprehensive assessments recommended in professional guidelines.

Such assessments are crucial, these medical professionals say, because as the number of pediatric patients has surged, so has the number of those whose main source of distress may not be persistent gender dysphoria. Some could be gender fluid, with a gender identity that changes over time. Some may have mental health problems that complicate their cases. For these children, some practitioners say, medical treatment may pose unnecessary risks when counseling or other nonmedical interventions would be the better choice.

[JerryBaumchen 1,047]

2 hours ago, DougH said:

What the fuck does that mean? Do you think there are "enabling parent" who are influencing or enabling their young children to be gay or transgendered, and when you add gay TV representation there is some sort of critical mass being reached?  

That makes as much sense as the piece of shit religious types that think they can program children back to being a heterosexual, and leave horribly broken people in their wake.

I am way more concerned about people programming hate, repression, bigotry, than I am about gay TV characters swaying my two young boys as they grow up over the next two decades.

The boogeyman goes to church on Sunday, it isn't the gay couple down the street.

Hi Doug,

PRICELESS!!!!!!!

Jerry Baumchen

[jakee 1,254]

4 hours ago, airdvr said:

My only problem is with young kids who are confused and the enabling parents.  The kids aren't mature enough to make those kinds of decisions.

You have a problem with gay characters on TV because it might lead to kids being confused into becoming gay?

If you had seen gay people on tv while growing up, would you be gay now?

[billvon 2,384]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

I realize they need help but physically changing their gender should wait.

You're saying several different things here.

First off, "physically changing their gender should wait" would be a disaster medically.  About 900 infants every year are born intersex, usually due to a combination of environmental and genetic stimuli.  Those pretty much have to be corrected.  A common Prader defect, hypospadias, would leave the infant unable to urinate normally.  In that case, the parents/doctor decide what physical gender the baby should be, and correct it to that.  Hypospadias repair would leave him physically male, and hypospadias extension/vaginal reconstruction would leave her female (physically.)

In such cases, the parents and the doctor should be the only people involved in the decision.

Secondly, "kids who are confused" generally aren't confused, any more than you were confused because you couldn't decide if you wanted to be straight or not.  I know several friends with nonbinary kids, and those kids know what they are - their problems are communicating that to a world that wants them to be male (or female.)

Third, transition surgery should generally wait until they are adults, I agree.  But there are going to be cases where the best thing for the child is to start earlier than their 18th birthday,  And again, that should be up to the parents, the child and their doctor and no one else.  I would hope that parents will make the best decisions for their kids as they can, but we all know that doesn't always happen - and not just for gender reassignment surgery.  Nevertheless, the government should not force their will on kids, any more than they should force parents to perform (or not perform) any other surgery on them, even if the parents are being stupid about it.

Here's an example.

A baby is born XY but mostly physically female.  (Incomplete AIS)  Short phallus, profound hypospadias, vaginal opening.  Postnatal surgery assigns the baby female.  

As she grows up, she presents as a normal girl with an unusually large clitoris and descended "ovaries."

At age 13, the child feels like they are male, and they find out they are genetically male.  They begin producing testosterone.  They express a desire for surgery to return to being male.  Should the government say no?

[riggerrob 558]

Dear Georgia Dan,

I have also noticed aracialism in advertisements in recent years. By "aracialism" I mean models who cannot be specifically identified as being genetically purely European or purely African, purely East Asian, etc.

Most are on the vague, sliding scale of "afro-Americans" who range from 100 percent African genes to those who contain almost no African genes, but have been labeled "black" due to antiquated American notions of "one drop of African blood makes you black." Very few of these models can be specifically identified as Nigerian or Somali.

We most commonly see slender models with pale skin, black hair, dark eyes, and vaguely epicanthic folds around their eyes. These vague features mean that they might be identified as European or East Asian?????????

[jakee 1,254]

58 minutes ago, riggerrob said:

Dear Georgia Dan,

I have also noticed aracialism in advertisements in recent years. By "aracialism" I mean models who cannot be specifically identified as being genetically purely European or purely African, purely East Asian, etc.

Pretty much no-one is purely anything. We’re all vague.

[airdvr 197]

I realize they need help but physically changing their gender should wait.

Wow! Must have struck a nerve.

[JoeWeber 2,294]

12 minutes ago, airdvr said:

I realize they need help but physically changing their gender should wait.

Wow! Must have struck a nerve.

I agree. Until, that is, changing back is possible and the parents put in escrow until the child's 18th birthday funds  sufficient to do the reversion surgery. In the meantime, just to prove we feel as strongly as we claim, let's all start cross dressing until it seems weird to kids. Shouldn't take more than a year, I reckon.

[jakee 1,254]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

I realize they need help but physically changing their gender should wait.

Wow! Must have struck a nerve.

I’m just wondering why LGBT representation on TV got you to this with literally no steps in between. 

[JoeWeber 2,294]

20 hours ago, billvon said:

That sounds less than fun.  Maybe I could be breaded.

Okay, I looked into it. No surprise, there aren't a lot of places who'll consider it but it's not impossible if you're willing to travel and I'm guessing that won't be an issue. Basically, and I wont bore you with the preparation details, you'll be dipped. It's after that when the protective coating is applied after which is when the breading can happen. Again, the choices are limited to crumbled Borsak unless there are local artisan bakers. I'm hoping you'll be flexible when you're in what will be an inflexible time for you.