And the community is only getting bigger.
  • qooqie@lemmy.world
    1333·
    1 year ago

    Makes me happy that 2 million people felt comfortable enough to be openly LGBTQ+ small steps, but it’s a positive direction

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
    912·
    1 year ago

    Yeah it turns out a lot of people are queer and just thought they were weird or the only one or were ashamed to acknowledge it

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
    691·
    1 year ago

    I’m more likely to believe that they aren’t living in hiding any more. The chemical castration of a war hero doesn’t exactly give one the confidence to believe they could safely be open and proud.

    • remotelove@lemmy.ca
      21·
      1 year ago

      We can just start telling people that “the gay” is contagious with numbers like these. We should have said this during the pandemic to get all the religious redneck nutters to put on a mask.

      (Sigh. It would have been funny at first, but it would be harmful in the long run, unfortunately. It would go from a joke to yet-another harmful myth that never dies.)

      • Alto@kbin.social
        324·
        1 year ago

        Of course not, they’re simply pointing out how the title is misleading. Obviously more people being able to feel comfortable enough to come out is a good thing, but that doesn’t change the number of gay people in the world.

    • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
      4·
      1 year ago

      Probably could have chosen different terminology but “grows” doesn’t necessarily mean more people became gay, it could just mean that more people openly identified that way.

      • SuckMyWang@lemmy.world
        11·
        1 year ago

        I wasn’t gay. But then I turned 60 and wanted to be hip again so I joined the internet to see what todays youngsters were up to. I saw that they’re all gay furries now so I figured I’d better get with times. It’s been very itchy and sometimes painful but at least I’m hip now.

        • BoastfulDaedra@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          I literally believe this now. Congratulations and have fun!

          Also, you can reduce the itchiness of your costume by soaking it with hair conditioner for thirty minutes and then stir drying it.

          😉

  • Jay@lemmy.caEnglish
    523·
    1 year ago

    As a straight guy I see this as pretty good news. It means more people are comfortable being themselves rather than what some church tells them they have to be. I’m sure in reality those numbers are even higher, but there’s still a lot of people who can’t/won’t admit it because of religious dogma.

  • Snapz@lemmy.world
    45·
    1 year ago

    “Grows”

    If there’s always been 10 million dollars in the basement wall and you find 2 million of it… That just means that you now know about more of the money, AND there’s still A LOT hidden that you still don’t know about. It’s always been there, you’re just now able to count more of it. The amount of money hasn’t really “grown” though.

  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    433·
    1 year ago

    It’s interesting that this is based on 2020 numbers. The last 3 years have seen a huge wave of hatred and escalating real world violence against queer people of all sorts. More anti-lgbt political actions have been taken in the last 3 years in America than I can remember at all before then. This wave coinciding with a rise in people identifying as LGBT makes me wonder if, unintentionally, this has been driving a boom in a wider understanding of LGBT people and education of LGBT rights.

    I feel like more people are aware of who queer people are and what it means to be gay or bi or trans or ace than ever before. Awareness has spread nearly globally, and there is a growing public opinion, especially among young people, that queer identity should be celebrated. It’s shocking to see the growth in such plain numbers because the hate campaigns against us obfuscate just how much public acceptance of queer people has grown over the last 5 years. This, in turn, has caused fascists to adopt the narrative that queer people are taking over society, justifying itself in part on how much more common queer acceptance has become.

    It makes me feel a sort of cautious optimism. Like inevitably more and more otherwise neutral cishet people are seeing queerphobia and anti-LGBT rights movements as wrong. The association of anti-LGBT movements with MAGA and open fascism and fascists like Ron DeSantis may be to some extent making more people pro-LGBT rights. As there are more openly queer people, thusly more people know someone who is queer than ever before. I think that is also probably encouraging more people to openly be themselves and live openly as LGBT people. I think there is some cause for hope that the combination of these various factors may be early indicators of a drastic shift in Western public opinion. Whether or not that will pan out to genuine political change is impossible to tell. For the time being LGBT rights are still very much under attack, with little signs of the Republicans (and all other conservatives and fascists) changing their agenda.

    • Transtronaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      3·
      1 year ago

      FWIW, I might have stayed oblivious of my own repressed gender identity for much longer if it wasn’t for all the hate-mongering keeping the subject in the news and making it harder to stop thinking about. So that’s at least one anecdotal example that fits such a trend.

  • spaduf@slrpnk.net
    392·
    1 year ago

    Most of this growth is in the bisexual demographic who are still severely undercounted. Not sure what this data says but bisexual men frequently self report at lower levels than gay men. Internalized homophobia really does a number on folks.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    314·
    1 year ago

    The Republicans should embrace LGBTQ+ people’s of the world…err the USA, US gays first lol. Here’s the reason: gay people will never need an abortion! Not only that, but hey if you got an unwanted fetus, sure let it be born and we’ll take it from there!

    It’s a win win situation while women are screwed just like the Republicans love it. But at least the women’s role ends right after they give birth to whatever citize might have been stuck in there for 9 months.

    Ofcourse I am being sarcastic about women. But if the Republicans really want all those deformed and rape babies born, well I suppose there’s a population who would be able to take care of them.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
      161·
      1 year ago

      You severely underestimate the power of religious dogma over a ton of people. A shit ton of people will forever be anti LGBTQ+ because they grew up with a religion that told them that it’s wrong. No amount of persuasion up to and including their own children coming out will change that.