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The results of the sexuality question in the last England & Wales Census have been released. "The proportion of people who identified as LGB+ was highest (6.9%) among people aged 16 to 25 and then decreased with each successive age group to 0.4% in people aged 75 and over", as The Guardian puts it in an excellent article. I find this very encouraging, though I think we've probably still got a way to go before everyone feels free to answer in the way they do actually feel, even though the census is private.
Over the years, I've seen wildly different guessimates of the LGB+ percentage of the population - ranging from 0.5% to over 15%. Both extremes, predictably, from people or organisations with strong ideological positions! I've tended to work on a personal guess of around 7.5%, for no very explicit reason.
The full census report and access to datasets is here.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13678
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I'm proud to have responded as a gay man. I'm part of the 0.84%.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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"timmy wrote on Thu, 26 January 2023 20:16"I'm proud to have responded as a gay man. I'm part of the 0.84%.
Me too, though I was surprised to learn it's as little as that! Among the guys our age that I know (excluding those I've met throughLGBT+ circles) it's rather higher - perhaps to be expected, as most of my acquaintances, like myself - are fairly socially liberal.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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ThisRick
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Getting started |
Location: Western USA
Registered: October 2021
Messages: 13
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Thanks for posting this - interesting.
Wish there were similar data for the US, but likely the UK and US aren't all that different. All I have seen for the US is a Gallup poll that had much less detail.
The headlines on the press take on the two surveys are similar: "Yay young folk", but there's another interperpretation which is that older gay men are kinda out of luck. I suppose "sucks to be gay and gray" isn't as attractive a headline.
While I'm more than happy for the younger generations (and even had a tiny part in helping create the better place), it doesn't feel great to be sidelined in more ways than one.
No wonder I've had all of one date in more years than I care to recall.
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"ThisRick wrote on Fri, 27 January 2023 20:51"
The headlines on the press take on the two surveys are similar: "Yay young folk", but there's another interperpretation which is that older gay men are kinda out of luck. I suppose "sucks to be gay and gray" isn't as attractive a headline.
While I'm more than happy for the younger generations (and even had a tiny part in helping create the better place), it doesn't feel great to be sidelined in more ways than one.
--
I think quite a lot of the "sidelining" may be because very many gay men my age (67) and older ended up in heterosexual marriages, and got used to living in the closet - to some extent, closeted even from themselves: it might be that it was an automatic reflex to tick "heterosexual" on any forms. I'd say that around half the men I've know in this position are out to their wives, and around half are not, though as far as I know they're all physically faithful. As men tend to die younger than women, they don't experience a burst of freedom when the partner dies. One exception was the father of a friend of mine, who came out to his children after his wife died when he was 80, though by that age he was not interested in dating. I'd kinda known he was gay since he was 40, as there was something wistful about the way he reacted to my own coming out.
I'd be really interested to hear other people's views on this.
As for dates ... they're not something I really have ever done. But it's now nearly nine years since I split from my last kind-of-partner (who was a great deal younger than me, and had no hesitation about being out about being bi, or about being HIV+, or anything much else!).
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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ThisRick
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Getting started |
Location: Western USA
Registered: October 2021
Messages: 13
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As one of the organizers of a group for men who came out later in life I've known dozens of men in that category. I'd say more than half of them were either married or like me, divorced from a straight marriage.
I don't know what to say about the closeted ones, hard to know how many there are since, well, they're hidden. Clearly they aren't available for dating so they don't figure in calculations of odds of finding a partner.
One sad thing I've seen is when an older man comes out when they die (either from natural causes or their own hand) their new found identity can be erased. In the handful of cases I have known like this none of the eulogies or obituaries mentioned their non-straight life, even when they had had same sex partners.
In my case, when by my mid-twenties I never found anyone available for an ongoing same sex relationship and looking at what I knew of the gay world in the 70s I opted for a conventional marriage which worked quite well for me, but always did feel something was missing. I'm happy for the divorce because even late in life it allowed me some chance to explore loving men though with age seems like any opportunity other than back room hookups is becoming more remote.
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I have always been gay and knew it from an early age, pre-teen. It meant I had to be careful, because in my school days, sixties going into early seventies, you didn't want that label. There were situations where being careful was difficult, like communal showers, changing rooms, and school trips, but I survived and managed to avoid ogling naked boys in the showers with the visible results that would produce.
I also managed to avoid losing my virginity to the opposite sex and was able to find a relatively open gay life. Relative, because I was not always open in every situation, I'm thinking about career and work.
I wouldn't criticise any gay old man for having fallen into a hetero marriage, but all the same it doesn't sit too well with me. There are times in life when you need to stand up and be counted, engineer your circumstances to avoid what you don't want, which is what I did, starting by getting a job and leaving home at eighteen.
I think everyone likes a happy ever after, maybe it was luck, determination, or circumstances, which gave me a forty year old (41 this May) partnership. One which was cemented first by a civil partnership, then a marriage, just as soon as they were legal.
In the last ten years the world, at least a large part of it, has changed incredibly with regard to same sex relations. Gays have come out and are now everywhere as simply a not unusual part of society. You might even say today it's fashionable to be gay or bi!
Well the past is the past and the future, who knows? My own story or snippets, slightly modified, but essentially based on real events, can be read in my short stories (not really a plug, simply if you want to know more about one person's gay life in another epoch, and you can always write me with questions or comments to discuss).
In another thread the question about who responds to the writing challenges and how to encourage participation was posed. For myself, I responded to challenges which struck a chord and inspired, like Black and White Boys - A Writing Challenge, whose picture could have been my class at grammar school.
Life can be cruel and sad, not finding someone to share it with is a hard road, but we live with the hand we are dealt. Being gay and old is an interesting theme which has been invoked and which has many facets to explore, including finding gay friends, a partner, young old relationships, sickness and health, growing even older. I have been quiet for some time, but felt compelled to reply here because a response in some tiny way breaks the isolation. If you want to share then why not, it's great to learn other people's lives and experiences, we could start an old folks thread. The site has a role in helping young gay people, perhaps it could have another role doing something similar for the oldies, or would we have to rename it Oldies Romance!
Finishing on subject, whether there are census numbers or not, I think you can be fairly certain the majority of the population is bi, there is a significant gay minority and, Yes! A significant hetero minority (who have largely controlled things - up till now!).
[Updated on: Fri, 03 February 2023 08:37] |
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Geron Kees
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Likes it here |
Location: USA
Registered: February 2016
Messages: 134
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It's very nice to hear from you again, William! I have missed seeing you in the story listings.
Age is a subject that can be addressed easily in story form, and I have seen a number of very good tales about being older and gay.
It seems a shame to have such an articulate voice and not use it to share the things you care about. Teen romances are not the only romances, by any means.
It would be just as interesting to read about your ideas on lasting romance as it was to read your ideas about budding ones.
In either event, welcome back.
[Updated on: Sun, 05 February 2023 18:35] |
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ThisRick
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Getting started |
Location: Western USA
Registered: October 2021
Messages: 13
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Even on this site with a theme of stories about youth, there is at least one story that has mention of the issues of age and changing one's direction in life.
Joe Casey's Enough Rope has a tender scene in the last chapter that echoes the experiences I have had with a few men helping them realize it's okay to be who they are even as old men.
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