What we know is that there has been a large percentage increase in the number of people identifying as queer.
One hypothesis is that this is because there was previously a certain percentage of the population who was queer, but the societal cost for identifying as such was sufficiently high so as to prevent them from doing so. It is therefore the lowering of the societal cost for identifying as such that has allowed this percentage of the population that was always queer to freely identify as such. Your explanation is that that is the only factor and it is as simple as that.
The hypothesis that you're dismissing is that not only has the societal cost for identifying as queer diminished, but that it has actually transitioned well into a net benefit in many communities (i.e. woke Gen Z, and others). Therefore, many of the people identifying as queer are doing so not because they are inherently queer and now free to identify as such, but rather that they are not actually queer, but see social advantages from identifying as such. The claim here is purportedly substantiated by the fact that the largest increase has been in those low stakes identities such as bisexual or demisexual, wherein the person can basically continue to operate normally as a heterosexual while claiming the social advantages of being queer.
Now, as I said, the answer is that this is definitely both. I don't, however, expect you to discuss something like this in good faith, because you seem quite keen on reducing it to your pet conclusion. I'm especially not interested in what I'm anticipating, which are a myriad of claims as to how being queer is still a marked disadvantage. I'm sorry, but within the circles for which we've seen explosive growth in identification, it very much is not.
Which is the same reason White students lie about their race.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/57...
For example if universities would take factors like poverty and access to educational resources into account, rather than using racial identity as a inaccurate proxy for this, they'd likely achieve more equitable outcomes, in helping talented but disadvantaged individuals gain access to higher education.
> For example if universities would take factors like poverty and access to educational resources into account, rather than using racial identity as a inaccurate proxy for this
That’s equality — as in “equal opportunity” and we had that before “equity” was introduced.
By contrast, equity is a fundamentally racist idea which emerged from a collectivist authoritarian view of the world which tries to fix past wrongs between purported “racial groups” by introducing present discrimination to “correct” past discrimination.
Teenagers have always pushed against the prevailing narrative, it's how we get new ideas into the world. It becomes problematic when viral vectors of trends are disseminated at the speed of thought globally. Humans aren't hardwired for this. See also the recent HN post that more teens are depressed than ever. It has nothing to do with actual geopolitics: remember that the Cold War was extremely bleak for Americans and go back just a little earlier and you have World War II and the Great Depression.
Teens are feeding on this firehose and thinking the world is ending and it's not just geopolitics. Now their memetic competition is global. The whole world's customs must be cast off and wholly rejected. Sex and identity too turn apocalyptic.
I think it's interesting that in a time where most of our deliberation is being mediated through disembodied media we are becoming disembodied, quite literally. We no longer identify as Male/Female/Human because the activities we take part in are physically formless. Our Internet identities are fungible, easily swapped unlike those in the embodied world. From this vantage, it's easy to sympathize with the desire to recontextualize identity in sex and gender to match the inner experience.
But from a Buddhist perspective, taking refuge inside another identity holds the same promise of suffering as the identity previous. And that's primarily what I'm seeing: self-immolation all across the Net. All of us burning privately and publicly to become the empresses and emperors of our own identity mountains. It's a race to the bottom and it's divisive. We are abandoning strata that are more inclusive ("we are all workers") for strata which are more exclusive ("we are black but you aren't black enough", "we are queer but you aren't queer enough”, "we are women", "no we are women", etc.)
I have more to say on a grand unified theory scale but I wouldn't be answering your question any more if I continued so I will stop here.
I remember many peers going HARD into goth or punk territory as teens, and most went on to become a much more whole and complex version of themselves as adults with that goth or punk side informing but not dominating their identity. They cherish it though, for what it gives them emotionally, psychologically, and aesthetically.
With a richer available expression of gender and sexuality now available, I suspect it's reasonable to expect that many teens will lean into it to the same degree, but in this case understanding that gender and sexuality are both spectrums will help them feel like more complete versions of themselves later in life.
I wish my peers (and older generations) had access to this when they were younger, because it would have saved them decades of confusion and suffering.
The richest expression of identity, one that doesn't fit into the cookie cutters of music genre enthusiast or political firebrand (and the path of least resistance) is ultimately where one drops labels and responds naturally to the world as it is, moment by moment.
If we're all going to be turned on to the world and co-exist peacefully, equitably, well that's a world that stops drawing party lines and starts opening to an experience that isn't a scorecard of labels under your Twitter bio.
If that's going at it backwards, bring on the retrograde.
Note that the 20% gen-z study also said "Gen Z women are roughly 3 times more likely than men to identify as LGBTQ", so a 5% : 15% split. And, you know, bisexual woman age 20-25 being LGBT is technically correct, the best kind of correct.
Given wider acknowledgement and acceptance of that I can see more folks coming out as bi.
Someone is bi because of 'woke' politics? And because they desperately want to be victims?!?!?!
What, did the math textbook on CRT in 2nd grade turn them gay!?!
How can this shit exist on a forum like this. Insane.
I have zero confidence in the future of this country. how are we going to fight climate change or a number of other things when 40% of the country and a couple southern GOP Governors are spending all their efforts digging deeper into this drivel and actively legislating these viewpoints.
just insane to me that this kind of absolute crap has such widespread support. especially on a forum of hackers, highly educated, "smart" people
Biphobia is a thing and it is a thing in gay/lesbian communities just as it is among straight people and your statement demonstrates why that is: straight people just see bisexuals as gay or lesbian and gay or lesbian people see them as traitors or cowards, especially if they live in a stable "straight passing" relationship.
Bisexuals aren't just "homosexuals who aren't committed enough". Research dating all the way back to Kinsey demonstrates that most people aren't fully hetero- or homosexual in whom they find sexually attractive regardless of what they identify as. If anything, "fully" homosexual or heterosexual people would be expected to be the exception if there were no hangups around these labels and identities.
> desperate to cling to something that makes them a victim in this world
There's a grain of truth in this perception but sadly it's tainted by American culture war bullshit. Teens and young adults have always experimented with identity and social roles so it's unsurprising they'll "try on" identities relating to themselves and that some of them will be whatever gets hotly debated today.
But this is very much a "now that we have stopped physically punishing children for using their left hand all of a sudden everybody is left-handed" dynamic to this, too. Social acceptance of left handed people led to a sharp increase in the number of left handed people followed by a period of stabilization leading to a steady proportional demographic because there were already left handed people living "in the closet" (knowingly or not) and they were finally able to "come out" once being left handed became socially acceptable. There were probably also some people unsure if they may have been left handed all along and giving it a try to see what felt more natural and then settling one way or the other, but left-handedness wasn't a "trend" or a "social contagion" or an "epidemic", just a way of being human that was previously suppressed and now normalizing.
And even today left-handed people encounter some discrimination or bias (intentional or not) in their daily lives. Utensils may still be needlessly tailored to right-handed people or left-handed alternatives may be unavailable simply because nobody considered the need for them or left-handed people are just expected to make do because they're a minority and shouldn't cause a fuss (and they can just try to use their right hand anway, right?).
But it would probably sound ridiculous to you if I said "I think kids these days are just claiming they're left-handed because they want to be victims" -- and I don't think it would have sounded as ridiculous when left-handedness was only just gaining acceptance and there was a sudden massive spike in the number of people claiming to be left-handed.
So here's a thought: why are identities like being bisexual (which if we can trust Kinsey mostly just means not making any assumptions about who you might find attractive by gender alone) considered "victim" roles? If it's because they're being treated badly, why don't we just stop treating them that way? So what if it means some kids who were "only doing it to be the victim" end up being caught in the crossfire and end up being victimized less?
>And even today left-handed people encounter some discrimination or bias (intentional or not) in their daily lives. Utensils may still be needlessly tailored to right-handed people or left-handed alternatives may be unavailable simply because nobody considered the need for them or left-handed people are just expected to make do because they're a minority and shouldn't cause a fuss (and they can just try to use their right hand anway, right?).
Right handed people are roughly 90% of the world population. So, as a business owner, why would you cater half your production to something that only 10% of the population finds appealing? Which brings me back to my original point. Why over represent people so drastically?
Wheelchair users only make up an estimated 1% of the US population. Would you argue businesses shouldn't try to make their storefronts wheelchair user accessible, e.g. installing ramps or wider pathways were applicable?
The point isn't just that left-handed people hardly find any products that actively cater to them, it's that many products explicitly exclude them by design. And alternatives are often hard to find and/or more expensive.
I'm not accusing any business of making a deliberate decision to be inaccessible. Inaccessibility is the default because the group is in the minority. But through statistical bias alone left-handedness effectively acts as a disability.
The question is ultimately one of equality of opportunity. Do you think that society should be shaped in such a way that statistical bias is compensated or do you think that society should reflect the statistical bias of its makeup (or option C: that society should be shaped by the biases of those with the political power and capital to shape it). If you think statistical biases should be compensated, you will necessarily end up with "dramatic overrepresentation" because the status quo is the consequence of many lifetimes of statistical bias shaping our society.
Note that there is no objectively "right or wrong answer" as this is a question about your values. And this is also what makes the question so polarizing as there's simply no way to pave over values that are the polar opposite of each other.
BTW this is ultimately the value difference that underpins the distinction between the political left and right, progressivism and conservatism, anarchism and statism: one proposes that hierarchies (i.e. power imbalances) are undesirable and should be avoided, the other believes in a (in Christian conservatism literally divinely ordained) "natural order" that is self-justified and desirable, and that any deviation from it or correction for it is a step towards societal decay (or literal "evil"). Most people tend to not use such an explicit language as they've never analyzed their own opinions (or "vibes" as the kids call it these days) in such detail but if pushed on it they usually steer one way or the other, though often with reservations that tend to be more pragmatic than ideological.