Queer and transgender people existed long before 2016. Sure, it might have taken until this year for transgender actresses to pave the way for media representation (hats off to Laverne Cox), but America has had gay Americans since America became America.
In 2011, a major meta-analysis of the size of the LGBTQ population in the United States by the Williams Institute estimated that 3.5 percent of adults were LGBTQ.
A recent report from the Public Religion Research Institute found that 7 percent of millennials are LGBTQ after surveying more than 2,000 U.S. adults between the ages of 18 and 35.
And as the Pew Research Center reported, conventional surveys may underestimate the LGBTQ population because of unreliable self-reporting. Respondents are far more likely to report they are queer when assured of absolute anonymity than when presented with a survey that connects their name to their answers.
However, the jump in the country’s reported LGBTQ population in the last five years has less to do with genetics contributing to the “gayest generation of all time,” and more to do with the sociopolitical circumstances that surround coming-out culture and identity.
UNC offers queer and transgender students a multitude of resources to encourage an attitude of acceptance across campuses. Pride Place, the UNC LGBTQ Center, CAPS and the student-run Sexuality and Gender Alliance and the Queer and Trans People of Color Coalition all do great work in the Carolina community to provide for queer and questioning students.
Despite all the efforts to further understanding between queer and straight students, the University takes severals steps forward and one step back with every survey it forwards to all its students.
In both the Student Union’s student feedback survey and the Campus Dining Survey sent this week, students were given the options “Male, Female, Transgender and Other” for labeling their gender identity.
Are transgender men not men? Are transgender women not women?
