Nearly 30% of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, national survey finds. “Gen Z is the queerest adult generation to date.”
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I love this, and it's entirely consistent with my Gen Z teen. There seems to be less pressure to identify as hetero, or even sexual in any way, early in elementary / middle / high school than there was for me in Gen X, and I love that.
Such a wonderful thing! My Gen Z daughter's first partner was another girl, and there was no coming out of any kind (we live in a liberal bubble of a big city in Germany). Everyone was just like: "you found someone you like, that's nice" and moved on. Her generation seems so knowledgeable, kind and open - it fills me with hope.
There's probably no way to study this, but I'd love to see how many middle-aged people who identified (or were branded) as weird in their teens are now looking at their kids and realising they were probably queer. (cf Autism)
I wonder how much of this is just population biology at work. It's easy to forget that we're still a very new species... We came on the scene recently, found we had a huge competitive advantage (language) that, as soon as we started exploiting it, allowed us to have a huge population boom that is now showing unmistakable signs of peaking (negative second derivative). And, what always happens at such a time? The population exhausts its resources in a way that renders its niche less hospitable. Strange diseases start coming out of nowhere. The fertility rate drops. - The things that are happening now only seem strange and inexplicable to us because we don't think of ourselves as a population of animals. But we are.
Well there are definitely less societal pressures - with high infant mortality rates and an agrarian society, I think there was a LOT of pressure on people to pop out babies in centuries past... So that's no longer a massive pressure on young people, regardless of how they would like to identify.
Makes me happy to see. I remember growing up and always feeling not masculine enough. It took me well into my 20's to understand that who I really am just didn't align with the mainstream idea of what a "man" is. I'm happy being me, which is just another hetero guy. Difference being, I don't have to behave like every other hetero guy out there that always seem to be popping off on testosterone. Figuring that out gave me a world of confidence.
Gay guy here, and I love this! I’ve observed that one of the surprising benefactors of LGBTQ+ equality has been straight guys, who no longer have to fear “being gay” when deciding what they enjoy in life.
I remember in my teens (Gen X here), there were so many everyday activities that were “gay”. Do you enjoy drinking cocktails, watching romcoms, talking about your feelings, smelling nice, taking care of your appearance, crying when you’re sad? All gay, so man up bro’. Ugh.
So so happy that the latest gen can live their best lives and enjoy the things they actually enjoy, free from arbitrary pressure to only like “manly” things.
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