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Seven Percent Of Women Identify As Lesbian/Bi; Eight Percent Of Men Identify As Gay/Bi

10/04/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
The problem of self-identification is that not everyone categorizes themselves as in a particular way. A recent study by the Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion found out a lot of things about sexual life in the United States, but most interestingly they found that seven percent of adult women identify as lesbian or bisexual, and that eight percent of adult men identify as gay or bisexual. A larger proportion of people have had same-sex sexual encounters in their lifetimes.

The number of lesbians, gays and bisexuals is of interest since it is usually the number of open lesbians and gays that is used to attack the movement for LGBT rights. Typically, anti-LGBT groups point to there being no more than two and a half percent of the US population who is lesbian, gay or bisexual, and this would put that number far higher- at somewhere around eight percent.

The number of lesbians, gays and bisexuals is probably higher, in truth, but there are a lot of people- as in Larry Craig- who are gay or bisexual but hate that label, and a number of people who repress their sexuality severely in order to conform to their religious or cultural upbringing.

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