How many Lesbians and Gays are there?”
We do not know exactly. Alfred Kinsey interviewed more than 10,000 people about their sexual behaviors across the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. To the public’s astonishment Kinsey’s results revealed that a substantial number of men (37%) said they had experienced some overt homosexual experience to the point to orgasm between adolescence and old age, and 10 percent were exclusively homosexual (Kinsey, 1948). Research conducted later with women found that 2% to 6% were exclusively homosexual (Kinsey, 1953). This question did not receive further study for at least two decades. In 1970 the Kinsey Institute published another study which maintained between 3.3% and 6.2% of people to be exclusively homosexual. The focus on numbers submerges the critical issue that lesbians, gay men and bisexuals are stigmatized. Would it be any more acceptable to harass, persecute, or perpetrate violence upon gay people if they comprised only 1% of the population? Certainly, all people should live fr
