Religion and LGBT people

[John V]

So?

So, the fact that 60% of gay adults didn't self-identify as gay as adolescents indicates that people are not necessarily born with a fixed sexual identity.

I didn't identify as bi in my adolescence, and being that I'm not ignoring my lived experience as a teenager, I'm not surprised that so many adolescents don't. There's this thing that sort of rules the roost as a kid, called peer pressure; like it or not, casual bigotry is a huge thing among younger people. Not so much now, granted, but certainly in the past; even now, the word gay is used as a slur, or in a negative context.

Are you honestly surprised that gay teens would opt to identify as straight, to follow the crowd, to be what they believe society requires of them, until they leave the echo chamber of high school? That doesn't mean the decision was made in that age range, just that they didn't identify with their sexuality until later on; you're misrepresenting the data, I hope not deliberately.

Not accepting your speculative explanation without support is not misrepresenting the data.

The effect of peer pressure is minimized in a confidential survey. Also, that effect couldn't explain all the change, as the numbers just aren't there. Hetero drops .8% from adolescence to adulthood, while G/L increases 1.5%.

Also note some stats given in the text. While 3% of adults self-identify as bisexual, triple that amount report attraction to both sexes. That's more than the G/L, B and other categories combined.

Also consider other times and cultures. For instance, ancient greeks didn't make gender the dividing line, they differentiated by the pentrative and receptive roles. It was fine for an adult male to take the penetrative role with another man, fine for an adolescent male to take the receptive role, but considered wrong for an adult male to take the receptive role. Where the heck is born gay in that paradigm?