Racial identity as revealed by the GenForward Survey

A reader at Reddit pointed me to this table from GenForward, an online survey of young Americans (ages 18-34). It's associated with the University of Chicago. You can see the question they asked about identity and the results by race:

The results are consistent with my analysis GSS data of adults of all ages, but the identity politics is seen more sharply here among young Americans.

Race is most important for nonwhites. Race (probably some of it ethnicity) is 3rd most important for whites. Religion is not important in any group except for Hispanics, perhaps. It's 5th for whites. Class and gender are important. Sexuality ranks highest among blacks which supports the stereotype of blacks being more obsessed with sex than the rest of us (which is saying a lot).

The one thing that could unite us--American nationality--is one of the least important identities. It reaches its peak--4th--among whites. The future looks like identity politics.

The one type of identity that will probably be considered illegitimate by elites for the foreseeable future is whiteness. Every other interest group will push, but when whites qua whites push, they will likely be crushed by the powers that be. I could be wrong, but I don't see a time when elites will ever see whites as simply another normal interest group.

UPDATE: One problem with the question is that it seems to be designed to emphasize the kinds of identity that are closely linked with politics. While the sample is of young adults, some people will be married and have kids by their early thirties, but 'marriage' or 'parenthood' (or something like 'family' which can be important at any age) are not included. These identities are important to many people, and I suspect the popularity of gender might be linked in people's minds to family roles.

Also--since the question asks about identities that "have the most impact on your life." some liberals whites might be want to choose race since they feel their white privilege is so consequential. I'm thinking of a new Inductivist slogan: "The definition of white privilege (or Jewish or Asian privilege) is the accident of being part of a social network that has more people who have their shit together."

What is the strongest correlation I've ever estimated?

Everyone who does social research knows that correlations about people are typically weak. You suspect that IQ predicts criminality, but then the data tell you the association is a mere .2. This is the rule rather than the exception. People are complicated. You can't reduce their behavior to a single factor. Plus, measurements are far from precise.

But on rare occasion, connections can be strong. The correlation between your education and your spouse's is .6 or .7.  The link between number of delinquent friends and one's own involvement in delinquency--about .6. Pretty good.

The largest individual-level correlate I've ever calculated (macrolevel correlations tend to be bigger) deals with sexual attraction: Using data I collected myself on 330 people, the point biserial correlation between being male and level of attraction to females is .82. For women being attracted to men, it's .84. Those are huge numbers.

Another way of describing it is in terms of standard deviations: the gap between male and female attraction toward females is 3.6 standard deviations. The difference between the two sexes on liking males is just as big--3.6 sds. You've probably heard that the black-white IQ gap is big. It is, at ONE standard deviation. The attraction gap is enormous.

Now you might be saying, duh, we would expect men to like women and women to like men.

Well, you might expect that, but then again you don't have a PhD in Gender Studies. Many years after the idiot Kinsey claimed that sexual attraction is a continuum, not categorical, researchers are still making similar claims.

With a continuum, one assumes that males will range from being strongly attracted to females to being strongly attracted to males, but most men will be somewhere in the middle with various levels of attraction for both sexes. The same for women. Most of them will have a mix of attractions. If this were the case, being male would not be a strong predictor of level of attraction to females. But common sense and my data predict the outcome very well: what do you know, men like women! And women like men!

I'm afraid a great deal of social research makes us dumber, not smarter. I'd love to see a great deal of it scrapped.

UPDATE: The latest sex theory I've come across claims that our ancestors were indiscriminate copulators: They would hump anything that moves. So males and females being attracted to each other was not the original system. With its de-privileging heterosexual sex, I predict the theory will be wildly popular.

Some facts about transgenderism

Archer's Father (@DoctorOcelot) from Twitter directed me to this recent analysis of transgenderism based on data from 90k Californians. Let's go over noteworthy findings.

The study finds that .35% of adults identify as transgender. While this rate is much higher than in the past, the only reason why so much public concern is devoted to such a small group of people is that liberals always need a fresh crusade. 

Demographically, transgenderism is largely a white thing. While the percentages of transgenders that are black or Asian are about what you'd expect from the racial composition of California, the white rate is much higher, and the rate for Hispanics is much lower. To be specific, whites are 4.8 times more likely to be transgender than Latinos. You tell me why the gap is so big.

Slightly more than half of transgenders start out as life as males. The plurality (46%) now say their gender identity is transgender. The next largest group (32%) identify as female, so this shows a tendency for male-to-females (MtF) to be the clearest about who they are.

Compared to cisgenders, transgenders have much higher numbers of gays and lesbians (20%) and bisexuals (45%), so in terms of sexual orientation, transgenders are a very messy group.

Other stats not specified here indicate that transgenders are more likely to be: poor, less educated, and psychologically and physically unhealthy. They suffer from high rates of emotional disturbance, depression, disability, and positive HIV status.

This reminds me of the recent study of homosexuals which showed genetic correlations with psychological difficulties and substance use.

The picture that emerges is of people who perhaps have a high number of mutations that disrupt the type of development that aligns one's anatomical sex with his gender identity and his sexual orientation--an alignment which makes an individual likely to be reproductively successful. In addition to this, other brain systems responsible for psychological health are also disrupted. 

Does sexual abuse of children lead them to identify as homosexual?

It is the position of this blogger that biology has a very strong impact on overall patterns of human behavior. That said, I don't dismiss the role of the environment. Add to that the fact that liberal scholars (redundant) bring all their bias into their research, so I instinctively want to check out what they are horrified to think might be true.

Case in point is the social influence on the development of homosexuality.  I have presented evidence previously on this blog that homosexuals are more likely than others to have been sexually abused as children. But it could be that in a cross-sectional study that adult homosexuals, trying to make sense of their orientation, will look back at their childhood and "discover" abuse. Or it might be that they are gender non-conforming as children and are thought to be homosexual, and are thus targeted by older people with same-sex attractions.

I found a study which responds to the issue of looking back and "finding" abuse by examining the relationship prospectively. Kids were identified as abused and followed over the years until they were around age 40. People who were sexually abused as kids were significantly more likely to report ever having had a same-sex partner.

Concerning the question of what comes first--orientation/nonconformity or abuse--this study of almost 36,000 people uses an instrumental variable technique to determine whether abuse is causing orientation or vice-versa. The authors conclude that abuse is causing (really, contributing to) orientation.

Males are usually the abusers, and it might be that abusers of boys are closer to them in age so it might be less aversive than with girls and might encourage boys to identify as gay while abuse of girls might be by older males (or perhaps more likely to be family members) and is more likely to be experienced as aversive which encourages a lesbian orientation. (The authors also mention a twin study in which approximately 65% of the variation in sexual orientation is due to unique environment.)

Does prenatal testosterone determine sexual orientation? A look at racial differences

The conventional wisdom is that sexual orientation, at least for men, is genetic, but the heritability estimates are actually rather weak.

Some researchers have theorized that homosexuality is caused by prenatal exposure to testosterone (T).  Baby boys develop into gay men if they are exposed to insufficient levels of T during a critical period of development, and baby girls develop into lesbians if they were exposed to high prenatal levels. The level of T isn't the only factor: individuals also differ in terms of how sensitive they are to T.

If such a theory were true, we should see racial differences in sexual orientation because blacks tend to be more sensitive to T than whites. Their androgen receptors genes located on the X chromosome tend to be more responsive to androgens. We should see a lower prevalence of black gay men and a higher percent of black lesbians.

The General Social Survey asks about sexual orientation.  Here are the responses by race (sample size = 26,227):

Percent homosexual
Blacks
Men  3.8 
Women  2.2

Whites 
Men  3.0 
Women  2.3

These numbers fail to support the theory for both men and women.  There should be more white gay men, but there are fewer.  There should be more black lesbians, but their prevalence is very similar to that of white women. 

How do black and white males differ in a way that would lead to more black gay men?  I'm not sure.  Greg Cochran theorizes that homosexuality is caused by some unidentified prenatal infection, and it might be the case that blacks live in conditions conducive to more infections.

How does gay promiscuity compare with that of lesbians?

Looking at sexual orientation, gender, and variety of sex partners is a good way to show how men and women really are very different. (The need to document this shows the crazy times we live in.)

According to evolutionary theory, since men can pass on their genes with minimal commitment, they have evolved the tendency to desire non-committal sex with a variety of partners.  Since having children is such a tremendous investment for women, they have been selected to be much choosier about sexual partners.  It's not typically hard for a women to get sex, but it can be a challenge to find partners who have the willingness and ability to provide resources to the offspring, or at least who have high-quality genes to pass on to one's children. 

If you're paying attention, you can see that a conflict arises: men who want many partners, and women who want few.  So many men are not able to get what they want.  But what about gay men?  There is no sexual conflict for them: just a bunch of guys who want novelty.

The General Social Survey (GSS) asked adults about: 1) sexual orientation, and 2) the number of male and female sex partners since age 18 (sample size = 23,579). Let's look at the numbers for male partners first:

Gay men average 43 male partners--much more than any other group. Coming in at a distant second is male bisexuals with close to 15 men.  Female bisexuals have a mean of roughly 12 male partners, and straight women report an average of 5.5.  The average for lesbians is a little over two men.

Now for the number of female sex partners since 18: 

The category with the most women partners is bisexual men with a mean of almost 20.  Next is straight men with almost 16 1/2.  Lesbians average close to eight female partners, and the mean for female bisexuals is around 5.  The mean for gay men is 2.6 women.

If we add together partners of either gender, the ranking for the total number of sex partners since 18 looks like this: #1) gay men, #2) bisexual men, #3) bisexual women, #4) straight men, #5) lesbians and #6) straight women.

So, sexual minorities have the most partners, but gay men and lesbians stick out; gay men because their numbers are so much higher, and lesbians because their numbers are atypically low.  Compared to lesbians, gays have around 4 1/2 times the number of partners.

This is consistent with evolutionary theory: men like sexual variety much more than women, and they show this most clearly when they are pursuing partners who also like variety; namely, other men.  Lesbians are not like other sexual minorities in that they do not pursue variety much. Why? Because they are women dealing with female partners.   

Who has sex more often--straights, gays, or bi-sexuals?

We straight people tend to be sexually repressed, right?  Isn't that what we're told by the experts?  That is hardly the case.  The General Social Survey asked American adults how often they've had sex in the past year (sample size = 23,771).  I've listed the modal category for each sex/orientation group, and by modal category I mean the most frequently given answer.  The percent who gave the modal answer is given in parentheses:

Modal category is 2-3 times per week
Straight men (24.0%)
Straight women (25.0%)

Modal category is weekly 
Bisexual women  (20.6%)

Modal category is 2-3 times per month
Gay men (20.6%)
Bisexual men (28.4%)
Lesbians (25.8%)

The pattern is clear here: straight people have sex more often than sexual minorities.  We even have more frequent sex than bisexuals who have double the potential partners!  We don't need to look to them about a healthy sex life. They need to look to us.

Now, you might be skeptical, thinking how gay men seem to have sex like crazy. You know--who's going to put the brake on sex when it's two men involved?!  Well, we're talking here about the frequency of sex, not the number of different partners. If your priority is variety (and perhaps STI's), gay men seem to have the advantage.

Which explains how prestigious your job is--intersectional theory or HBD?

On Twitter, Steve Sailer writes, "The pattern that gay black males tend to assimilate into white corporate culture better than do straight black males deserves more social science attention than it has received.  It's hard to notice if you are Woke and believe in the conventional wisdom about Patriarchy, etc."

Let's test this kind of idea with General Social Survey (GSS) data.  Based on intersectionality theory--experiencing more discrimination with each additional minority status--job prestige rankings should look something like this:

Top Tier--Zero Strikes Against
Straight white male

Second Tier--One Strike Against
Straight white female
Gay white male
Straight black male

Third Tier--Two Strikes Against
White lesbian
Straight black female
Gay black male

Fourth Tier--Three Strikes Against
Black lesbian

By contrast, biological theory would focus on traits that are important for high-status jobs, and the obvious candidate is intelligence and the glaring racial gap in IQ. So this view would predict that the big divide will be race, with whites above average in job prestige and blacks below average. The other demographics shouldn't matter much. 

And what are the facts?  According to GSS data for 19,901 respondents: 

Mean occupational prestige 

Gay white male  47.1
White lesbian  46.2
Straight white male  45.2
Straight white female  44.5

Total Sample  44.2

Black straight female  40.9
Black gay male  40.7
Black lesbian  39.8
Black straight male  39.2

As predicted, the major divide is race.  All whites are above average, and all blacks are below.  If intersectional theory were true, black lesbians would be on the bottom, and straight white males would occupy the top position.  Neither is the case.  Biological theory would predict no disadvantage for homosexuals--in fact, I reported in a previous analysis that they have above-average IQs--and indeed they do well.

And relevant to Steve's point about black males, homosexuals do better than straights, which contradicts the claim that it's all about intersectional discrimination.

Biology explains more than sociology.

Is gay liberation leading to gay genocide?

Look at this graph (GSS data) which shows the mean number of children that gay men ages 40-64 have for the past four decades:

In the 80s, the average gay man had two kids.  By the 90s, the number had dropped to .81, and in this decade, it's down to .58.  In other words, a gay man 40 years wasn't that different than a straight guy in terms of offspring. Now, he has less than 30% the family size of a heterosexual.

While Greg Cochran is right that the heritability of homosexuality is not high, there seems to be some genetic influence, so it's ironic that gay liberation is leading to fewer people with genes that raise the odds of homosexuality.  That implies fewer and fewer gay men in the future.  Strange, but I don't hear anyone accusing liberals of secretly pushing for the slow genocide of homosexuals. 

Gay men, but not lesbians, are more likely to favor gun control

With the Orlando shooting, I wondered about gun attitudes among gay people. The General Social Survey asked people if they favored a law requiring people to get a police permit before buying a gun. Here are the percentages in favor:

Men
Gay  82.9
Bisexual  64.3
Straight  65.6

Women
Gay  66.7
Bisexual 60.0
Straight 77.6

Among men, gays are more likely to favor a gun permit law. In fact, the vast of majority of them want it. In contrast, bisexual men are like straight men.

The pattern is different for lesbians: their numbers are similar to those of straight men. Bisexual women shows the LEAST support for gun permits of any group.

The overall pattern is consistent with the view that gay men tend to be psychologically like women, while lesbians are like men. Some of this could be due to the level of exposure to prenatal testosterone. Bisexuals in some ways seem hyper-masculine; turned on by anything that moves.

Gays and Straights: No IQ difference

Using GSS data, I found in an earlier analysis that gay men and lesbians had higher average IQs. To check this, I examined mean IQs by sexual orientation for adolescents from the Add Health Study. IQ is measured with a vocabulary test. Students were asked if they were ever sexually attracted to a female and/or a male. I limited the analysis to whites: the overall mean is 104.3 (it is high because the mean for the whole sample that includes many NAMs is set at 100).

Mean IQ score (sample size = 6,145)

Bisexual female 108.1
Straight male 105.9
Lesbian 105.9

All whites 104.3

Bisexual male 104.3
Straight female 104.0
Gay male 102.6

There are a range of means, but the only statistically significant difference is between bisexual and straight females. It's close to one-third of a standard deviation difference, which is fairly small.

Unlike the GSS analysis, lesbians and gay males do not appear to be smarter than other groups. The GSS asked about sexual behavior, not attraction. It might be the case that smarter people are more likely to act on non-conformist desires.   

Sexual orientation, body size, and shape

Using MIDUS data, I lumped together homosexuals and bisexuals, giving me 53 gay men and 45 lesbians. I then calculated waist-to-hip ratios for everyone:

Mean waist-to-hip ratio

Straight men .97
Gay men .95
Straight women .85
Lesbians .88

Compared to gay guys, straight men have more tubular (masculine) bodies, while among women, lesbians have the more straight-up-and-down shape. The differences are statistically significant. The guy gap is only two-tenths of a standard deviation (SD), but the female gap is four-tenths of an SD--a moderate difference. 

Next, I calculated the mean Body Mass Index (BMI) for each group:

Mean Body Mass Index

Straight men 28.35
Gay men 27.21
Straight women 27.53
Lesbians 28.27

Straight men and lesbians have similar numbers and are heavier than their gender counterparts. Gay men and straight women also have similar BMIs (gay men are actually thinner). The differences, however, are not statistically significant.

Finally, let's look at height:

Mean height (inches)

Straight men 70.2
Gay men 69.6
Straight women 64.3 
Lesbians 64.8

For the men, straight guys are 6/10 of an inch taller. Lesbians are half of an inch taller than hetero females, but neither of the differences are significant.

Overall, the numbers suggest that gay men are more feminine than straight men, while lesbians are more masculine than heterosexual women.  

Sexual orientation and sexual assault

I showed in earlier analyses that homosexuals have higher rates of early sexual contact and sexual assault victimization than straights. Here's what we find from fresh data (MIDUS Study):

Percent ever sexually assaulted (N = 2,344)

Males
Straight 3.8
Gay 15.8
Bisexual 46.7*

Females
Straight 22.0*
Lesbian 44.4*
Bisexual 50.0*

*significantly higher than straight males

Non-heteros are much more likely to report a sexual assault than their hetero counterparts. The data for the earlier posts referred to childhood and adolescent experiences. MIDUS data shows the same pattern for an adult sample. (Of course, most assaults occur when a person is young). Readers have suggested a number of reasons for this observed pattern, but whatever the explanation, the different risk seems clear.  

Sexual orientation and social closeness

A social closeness score was calculated for participants in the MIDUS study based on the following items: is sociable; likes to be with people; takes pleasure in and values close interpersonal ties; is warm and affectionate; turns to others for help and comfort. Here are the means by sexual orientation (sample size = 3,850).

Mean social closeness score

Males
Straight 11.45
Gay 11.67
Bisexual 10.79

Females
Straight 12.09*
Lesbian 11.09
Bisexual 11.52

* significantly higher than straight males

The mean for straight females is a bit more than one-quarter of a standard deviation (sd) higher than the mean for straight males--a small difference. If we ignore significance (the lesbian sample is only 23 people) the lesbian mean is four-tenths of an sd lower than the mean for straight women--a moderate difference. Lesbians are less likely to be people people.

This is consistent with my recent finding that, compared to straight women, lesbians are less likely to have emotional intimacy in their sexual relationships.

Sexual orientation and emotional intimacy

Participants in the Midlife Development in the U.S. Study were asked:  "To what extent would you say that your sexual relationships include emotional intimacy?" Most of these people are between 40 and 60 years of age. The following lists the percent who answered "not at all" (N = 2,818):

Percent

Men
Gay 16.0
Straight 4.2

Women
Lesbian 15.4
Straight 5.2


Homosexual men and women are 3-4 times more likely than their straight counterparts to have sexual relationships that have no emotional intimacy.

Gender, sexual orientation, and forced sex: The National Crime Victimization asks tens of thousands of Americans each year if they have been the victim of crime. Among the many different types, both males and female are asked if they have been forced to have sex. I looked at the 1992-2005 sample that included 924 cases of forced sex. The percent distribution by sex of offender and victim looks like this:


Percent distribution

Male-on-female 80.5
Male-on-male 10.5
Female-on-male 3.6
Female-on-female 5.4

First, I don't know how men are forced to have sex as in sexual intercourse with women since I would think an erection shows cooperation. It sounds like a situation where a man could get excited by the woman and in the particular situation; he didn't want to do it for some reason, but was pressured into it or something like that. Or by "sex" the respondents mean something less than intercourse.

You can see both gender and sexual orientation at work here. Guys--straight and gay--are less than 50 percent of the population but commit over 90% of the sex crimes. No news there. Homosexual offenders commit more acts on male victims than straight females even though they are a tiny group. Lesbians attack half as many victims as gay men, but then again they are roughly half as prevalent as male homosexuals.

Of course I'm oversimplifying because there are people who commit same-sex assaults who say they are not homosexual. This fact has been observed in prison, but it is not expected to happen much in free society where straights have access to members of the opposite sex.

I'm sure someone will comment that sexual assault has nothing to do with sexual attraction, but we HBD-ers don't go for that PC nonsense.

There are more lesbians, but not more gay men now: For this decade and the 1990s, I compared the percent of American men and women who said they have sex exclusively with members of the same gender (GSS data):


Percent who are homosexual (N = 17,295)

Men
Nineties 2.8
This decade 3.6

Women
Nineties 1.8
This decade 2.5*

* p < .05, two-tail test

While homosexual prevalence went up for both sexes, only the lesbian increase is statistically significant.

Acceptance of homosexuality also increased significantly over the past two decades. The percent of Americans who feel that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality rose from 23.6% in the nineties to 32.5% in this decade.

With the growing acceptance, why didn't the number of gay men increase due to a greater willingness to admit it? And if willingness to report is not a factor, perhaps the growth among lesbians is real growth and not just a change in being more honest. I take this as evidence that female sexual orientation is flexible enough to be influenced by social acceptance, whereas male homosexuality may not be. As American society continues to embrace lesbianism, we might get more of it.

Mean lifetime sexual partners for gay men: Over at Secular Right, Soul Searcher made this comment:

Notice that the prolific Jason Malloy of GNXP has already made clear to Ron Gunhame of the Inductivist blog some of the heartening empirical statistics on gay promiscuity and its relation to gay marriage, to which he has not yet responded.

In particular, Jason finds in his analysis of the GSS data:“I have no idea if there is a faulty assumption somewhere in here, but at face value, this data shows the sexual behavior of homosexual males is actually nearly identical to straight white male sexual behavior. Most shockingly: gay males are just as likely to have one lifetime sexual partner as straight males!

Soul Searcher was refering to a post showing that homosexuals are less likely to think that marital infidelity is wrong. I never did replicate Jason Malloy's analysis, but let's do it now. I'm not sure if I'm doing it precisely the same way he did, but let me lay out the details.

I limited the analysis to men ages 45 and over since the number of different sexual partners has slowed down by that age. Homosexuals are defined as those only having exclusively male partners in the past year (SEXSEX). Unfortunately, we don't have a better measure available.

For straight men, it's only having female partners over the same period. I looked at how many male partners gay men reported having since age 18 (NUMMEN) and how many female partners straight men have had since age 18 (NUMWOMEN). By the way, these questions were asked 12 different years (1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008).


Heterosexual men (N = 2,993)
Mean lifetime partners 17.71
Percent with only one lifetime partner 20.2


Gay men (N = 80)
Mean lifetime partners 46.05
Percent with only one lifetime partner 15.0


I don't know why Jason Malloy's numbers are different from mine. He wouldn't have had 2008 data, but that should make little difference.

According to my analysis, the gay lifetime mean is 2.6 times higher than the straight mean. Both means are inflated by a few men who have hundreds of partners. I don't see where I can get a median calculated.

By contrast, you can see that the percent having only one lifetime partner is not unusual for either group, but it is a little higher for heterosexuals.

Keep in mind that the questions were asked of men from 45 to those into their nineties, so some were young men in the 1920s. I wouldn't expect gay men to have been as promiscuous then as they are now.

Lesbian lawbreakers: I showed the other day that gay men are not less criminal than straight guys (at least that's what one data set says). Now, what about lesbians?

The Longitudinal Study of Violence Against Women asked 1,160 women about their sexual orientation, and if they had been arrested in the past year. Here are their answers:


Percent arrested in past year

Straight women 1.8
Lesbians 11.1
Bisexuals 5.9

It's what I think most of us would have expected. (Keep in mind that the sample sizes for the non-heteros are very small).

Sexual assault among female inmates is nothing like that of males, but it does happen. And now we have evidence that lesbians are overrepresented among those brought into the system.

More evidence that bisexuals have problems: Using General Social Survey data, I have shown that bisexuals seem to engage in more troubling behavior than other sexual orientations. The Longitudinal Study of Violence Against Women asked 1,159 female college students if they had an abortion in the past year. Here are the percent who said yes by sexual orientation:


Percent of women having an abortion in the past year

Straight 2.9
Lesbian 0.0
Bisexual 5.9

This is more support for the "troubled bisexual" hypothesis. Bisexual women are more likely to abort a child even though you would expect that some of their partners would be unable to get them pregnant. Actually, they do have more total partners. (By the way, I've also reported a pattern of less psychological health with those who are very unsure about their belief in God. Atheists and those who are certain of God's existence seem healthiest--at least in some ways. Problematic behavior seems to accompany ambivalence. This reminds me of Durkheim who wrote that questioning everything is an unhealthy condition.)

These results also make me more pro-lesbian: they don't have abortions.