Tag Archives: heterosexual

New Survey Says Americans Are More Accepting Of Same-Sex Relationships, Than Heterosexual Divorce

According to a new survey, Americans are more accepting of gay relationships, but they are less comfortable with divorce.

Over the last few years, the American government has been periodically asks thousands of teens and younger adults what they think about changes in U.S. family relationships.

The results released this week indicate a shift over a decade on a range of topics. But most surprising was what they said about divorce.

Asked if divorce is the best solution when a marriage is on the rocks, 38% of women agreed, down from 47% a decade earlier. For men, it was 39%, down from 44%.

Divorce in the U.S. has become more common through the generations, and there’s an assumption that acceptance would be holding steady or perhaps increasing, some experts said.

According to Wendy Manning, a family and marriage researcher at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, there could be several explanations for the decline.

Marriage is becoming so selective that maybe people think if you achieve this status, you don’t want to end it.”

Marriage rates are down and people are older when they first get married. So those who do marry are more likely to be in it to win it, she said.

Also, the survey was conducted on the heels of a national economic downturn, when some couples didn’t have the money to divorce and set up separate households, she noted.

Other findings, which reflect an increase over a decade:

  • Think it’s OK for a young couple to live together before they’re married; about three-quarters of men and women.
  • Approve of single women having and raising a baby; 78% of women, 69% of men.
  • Agree gay and lesbian adults should have the right to adopt children; 75% of women, 68% of men.
  • Approve of premarital sex among 18 year olds; about 54% of women and 64% of men.
  • But there was no significant change when it came to sex among 16 year olds. Only 15% of women and 21% of men said it’s OK.
  • And fewer than 10% think it’s necessary to have children to be happy in life. That hasn’t been changing, either.

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According To New Survey, More Than Half Of America’s Youth Aren’t Straight

A new survey of Americans aged 13-20 – also known as Gen Z – has found that only 48% of them identify as “exclusively heterosexual”, meaning that the majority of young Americans are queer AF.

The study asked people to rate themselves on a scale of zero to six, with zero being “exclusively heterosexual” and six being “exclusively homosexual”

Most didn’t pick zero or six,were found to be more open-minded and permissive than the group just a few years older – millennials (aged 21 to 34).

The report’s author, J Walter Thompson Innovation Group believes means those people were bisexual.

They also found that over 70% of 13 to 20-year-olds believed in having gender neutral bathrooms, while just over half of millennials feel the same way, making it clear that the younger generation is basically more openminded and progressive than millennials are.

And when asked the question, “do you strongly agree that gender did not define a person as much as it used to?”; over a third of Gen Zers said yes.

Although the survey only polled a small number from across the country, Laughlin was confident the results reflected a national trend.

We’re even more confident about this for this particular survey because we see clear patterns across the different questions that show that Gen Z has a more complex and less binary approach to gender than millennials.”

The survey follows a similar one released in January that revealed woman are more likely to say they are bisexual than men.

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Why Queer People Shouldn’t Care What Straight People Think

In the last decade or so, LGBTQ people have made massive strides on the road to establishing our rights.

For example, across the United States more than 70% of the population lives in a place with marriage equality (same-sex couples are now entitled to benefits too), other countries like England and Scotland have also passed marriage equality laws, anti-discrimination laws now protect many millions of people from being treated badly because of their gender or sexuality; and there has been an increase in LGBT adopters due to improved laws about same-sex adoptions.

Each and every one of these achievements was made possible with the help of straight people! Wait, what? Don’t worry I’m just kidding – but the idea that the LGBTQ rights movement would not have happened without our straight, cisgendered allies is a familiar, yet incorrect opinion.

Some people argue that because straight, cisgendered people are a majority, queer people should cater to them and be careful not to step on their toes since being nice to heterosexuals is the way to full equality.

But this is not a viewpoint shared by me. I ask the question of why should queer people care what straight people think, when they took our rights away in the first place?

Why should we sit around campfires holding hands and singing kumbaya with these people, when just a few years ago they were happy for LGBTQ people to be treated like second class citizens; second class citizens who once less human rights than animals.

And two queer people I spoke to – Ebony and Jess – had answers.

Ebony explained that catering to straight people “makes it seem like [queer people are] doing everything we can to make [straight people] feel comfortable when they’re the oppressors. It’s backwards and it should be them saying ‘yeah we know we oppressed you and now we want to help you in a respectful way'”.

Meanwhile, Jess added that “[straight people] don’t tone their sexuality for us so why should we do it for them? It defeats the point of the legalisation of gay rights because it makes you feel ashamed, it gives you sense of being oppressed because although you’re considered equal in law, in society, you’re not as liberated as it implies.”

Not only is a softly softly approach unfair to queer people, as Jess and Ebony have said, it also doesn’t work.

People pull up similar arguments when it comes to racial inequality, asking why people of colour don’t just cross their fingers and hope that someday all white people will be accepting and we’ll live in a harmonious society: The simple truth is that the people with the power don’t care and they’re happy to carry on oppressing us all since it doesn’t make a difference to them.

If anyone got anywhere by playing nice and twiddling their thumbs, inequality across the board would have been eradicated long ago.

In addition, if queer people were to sit back and deal with it every time a straight person treated them badly or spoke micro-aggressions (e.g you’re pretty for a trans girl! Or, why do all lesbians dress like men?) then we’d be faced with them all the time. The only way to stop these things from happening is to be clear: we will not tolerate this.

LGBTQ rights are more important than heterosexual feelings and if our straight allies are as invested in helping as they say they are, they should recognise this instead of asking us to play nice.

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Two women kiss in front of anti gay crowd