Ivy League LGBTQ+ numbers soar and students point to identity politics

Since sexual orientation identity is largely non-falsifiable, many people will claim LGBTQ status to join the ‘oppressed’ group,” she told The Post.

According to a Princeton student newspaper survey, 35% of the 2023 graduating class identified as something other than straight.

It could be that students at elite schools are more inclined to be obsessed with social acceptance and professional advancement, and … profess an LGBTQ identity to indicate their political beliefs on a campus that leans left,” she added.

At schools for which historical data is available, the proportion of students who are not straight is skyrocketing. Brown jumped from 14% in 2010 up to 38% this year.

Some 29% of Yale’s class of 2023 identified as something other than heterosexual when they were surveyed as freshmen in 2019. That’s up from just 15% of the class of 2020 when they were asked by the school paper in 2016.

I'd be curious to see the breakdown among the sciences – surely there's a chasm between those enrolled in the natural sciences and those in humanities, for example?

“Queer is as much politics as it is a sexual identity. Maybe even more so,” Appel, author of the forthcoming book “Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic,” told The Post. “The Ivies have a lot of really privileged kids. I’m sure many are motivated to identify into a so-called marginalized community in order to earn some social cache.”

He thinks a growing number of amorphous labels allow more people to fall under the LGBT umbrella than ever before.

“The ‘trans’ and ‘queer’ umbrellas have expanded to include gender-nonconforming people and even people who would normally be considered straight,” Appel noted.

Anthony agrees: “In some instances, a straight person will identify as bisexual but simply continue dating the opposite sex.”

Although Columbia hasn’t published similar figures, Appel and another Columbia graduate both estimate they are in line with other Ivy League schools.

“It’s becoming a majority,” an anonymous member of Columbia’s class of 2022 observed.

“It makes sense that these polls were taken at Ivy League universities,” he told The Post. “Students take one queer theory course and come out as queer.”

At Princeton this year, 35% of seniors identified as something other than straight, compared with just 25% of incoming freshmen. And nearly one in five Princeton grads this year came out while in college.

Cornell developmental psychology professor and young adult sexuality expert Ritch Savin-Williams believes that Gen Z students are coming out in larger numbers due to increased social acceptance — especially on progressive campuses: “The shift has been in the visibility and the willingness of individuals to express it and to declare it.”

They're all LGBTQ+ now for the same reason they're all clamoring for ADHD and/or autism diagnoses and demanding excessive accommodations. The media regards it too earnestly. Talk to the (actually gay) people who teach these kids and in private they roll their eyes.

More clicks for Murdoch. Great.

Oh for god's sake. It's called "Gay till graduation." I would bet the rent that a good chunk of the EL GEE BEE TEE KYOO EYE AY PLUS kids are females who call themselves "bi" or "queer" or "non binary" and will marry a man when it's all done.

Which is fine! Youth is a time to try on a lot of different identities and see what feels good.

It's just ridiculous that Murdoch has created a nation full of people with the memories of goldfish who get newly mad at a thing that's been going on since the 90s.

This is the new way to fit in.

I remember when I was in college, straight people thought I am only gay because I hadn't find the right woman yet. There was also the sentiment that you could be straight if you just wanted to. Especially bi-people couldn't "justify" themselves.

But as we know we never wanted to be straight. And we couldn't. We just wanted to be gay and lesbian because that's who we were. If today 35% don't want to be straight - fine. They are straight until graduation? Never heard of that concept. But fine. Go for it. I never understood why soccer is out of fashion after graduation. But I don't have to.

It's hilarious that now the gays and lesbians (at least a few here on DL) cannot fathom that people want to live the way they want. Just have fun. Just don't break any hearts.

[quote]I remember when I was in college, straight people thought I am only gay because I hadn't find the right woman yet. There was also the sentiment that you could be straight if you just wanted to. Especially bi-people couldn't "justify" themselves

[quote]If today 35% don't want to be straight - fine. They are straight until graduation? Never heard of that concept. But fine. Go for it.

Do you not see the relationship between those things?

duh. We had to get away from the straight hoi polloi and make sure we got the hell away from our small-minded towns.

I'm gay and graduated from Brown a couple decades ago. 38% of the student body is not straight but that doesn't mean 38% are muff divers and cock suckers. It's just an identity to not identify as "straight".

Shpicy shtraightsh...

Guess now I’m liberal I have to be gay now.

I think it is because of the way you phrased it. It is not that 7% of Americans are gay, it is that 7% of Americans have realized they were gay, have come to terms with it, and will admit it. There are many generations encompassed in America. So many generations still live in the closet, 38% seems right to me

Aunt Ida understoood it all many years ago.

It's just common sense: "if they're smart, they're queer, if they're stupid, they're straight"

oh please, no. People who are biologically homosexual represent a very small segment of the population (I think 7% is generous). As someone who was born gay and had absolutely no choice in the matter, I don't have much patience with these "fashionably queer" "gay for a day" types and they're the ones who make up the 35%.

The comparable minority is the number of people who are left-handed (which is about 10%). Are people saying they're "culturally left-handed" or "I identify as left-handed"? No, no one tries to pretend they're left-handed because there's no cultural cachet involved in it.

Actually surveys where extra care was taken to protect confidentiality found 20% with same sex attraction in 1991, R17, at the height of the "all the gays are going to die" era. The largest parade in most cities is the gay pride parade. Just clinging to your 7% is stupid. If you were more attractive you'd be hit on by a far higher percent.

R18, I suspect surveys like that take a very broad view of same-sex attraction ("Have you ever in your life felt any romantic or sexual attraction to any member of your own sex?") and by that standard, 20% is probably reasonable and accurate. But I don't consider it very useful. I would be more interested in the percentage of people who answer No to the question "Have you *ever* in your life felt *any* romantic or sexual attraction to a member of the opposite sex?"

That wasn't the question R19.

The book is called "The Day America Told the Truth"

When Vassar went coed it got very gay, very quickly. By the end of the 70s, the blueblood moneybags on the Board had a snit fit and demanded that admissions department weed out the flaming HS boys, and start recruiting any straight good looking jock boys they could convince to attend Vassar.

Being gay in college is nothing new. It's being gay after college that's more significant.

I knew plenty of LUGs in college -- Lesbian Until Graduation. Not at all uncommon among women to be lesbian while an undergraduate, then marry a man and have kids after graduation.

Also knew a few GUGs in college -- Gay Until Graduation. It's much more common for men to just say they are bisexual, but i knew a handful of guys who were proudly gay on campus, but married women once they got into the real world.

How old are you, R23?

It’s not Ivy - it’s Ivx.

Is Harvard now going to get sued for having an affirmative action program for homos?

I dunno. Are Asian American wunderkids all in with the queer zeitgeist?

What a crock of shit.

There’s a big difference between merely “identifying” as something and engaging in behavior.

Most of this uptick is driven by females who acknowledge some same sex attraction but never act on it.

Harvard has never had an affirmative action program for homos

R23, I don't know a single GUG. Does my anecdotal evidence count more than yours?

Even the most liberal straight guys would rather die than have people think they're not straight, it's why women are much more likely to identify as bi

I seriously doubt over 30% of people at a school identify as LGBT

Some of you don't understand the concept of sample bias

The Onion has a 21 year old article to explain this

After Gay Rights took off, Yale became the "Gay Ivy". Alumni notoriously decimated by AIDS. They tried to have an AIDS memorial for Alumni but I think it fell apart eventually.

[quote] Harvard has never had an affirmative action program for homos

Gee, no shit?, R30

[quote]Harvard has never had an affirmative action program for homos

Well they should have!