Born That Way

One of the seminal thinkers in modern feminism, the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, wrote in her famous book The Second Sex (1949) that a woman is not born a woman but rather chooses to become one.

Is that also true of sexuality in general? Are LGBTQ individuals, for example, genetically determined - "born that way" - or do they ultimately choose their sexual orientation and expression?

A paper by political scientist Eric Kaufmann sheds light on the question.

Kaufmann has collated the results of numerous studies of LGBT identification and behavior and has come up with some interesting conclusions. Here's a summary of his findings:

• The last decade has seen a precipitous rise in the share of Americans identifying as LGBT, particularly among the youngest adults. Today, among those under 30, a wide range of surveys converge on a number of around 20%. Government data from Canada and the UK indicate that surveys might be overestimating the extent of the rise in LGBT identity. This caveat must be kept in mind in understanding this report. Nonetheless, these government sources indicate that the trend is real, even if less reliable surveys might exaggerate it.
• The most popular LGBT identity is bisexual, which is significantly more common among women than men.
• When we look at homosexual behavior, we find that it has grown much less rapidly than LGBT identification. Men and women under 30 who reported a sexual partner in the last five years dropped from around 96% exclusively heterosexual in the 1990s to 92% exclusively heterosexual in 2021. Whereas in 2008 attitudes and behavior were similar, by 2021 LGBT identification was running at twice the rate of LGBT sexual behavior.
• The author provides a high-point estimate of an 11-point increase in LGBT identity between 2008 and 2021 among Americans under 30. Of that, around 4 points can be explained by an increase in same-sex behavior. The majority of the increase in LGBT identity can be traced to how those who only engage in heterosexual behavior describe themselves.
• Very liberal ideology is associated with identifying as LGBT among those with heterosexual behavior, especially women. It seems that an underlying psychological disposition is inclining people with heterosexual behavior to identify both as LGBT and very liberal. The most liberal respondents have moved from 10-15% non-heterosexual identification in 2016 to 33% in 2021. Other ideological groups are more stable.
• Very liberal ideology and LGBT identification are associated with anxiety and depression in young people. Very liberal young Americans are twice as likely as others to experience these problems. 27% of young Americans with anxiety or depression were LGBT in 2021. This relationship appears to have strengthened since 2010.
• Among young people, mental health problems, liberal ideology, and LGBT identity are strongly correlated. Using factor analysis in two different studies shows that assuming one common variable between all three traits explains 40-50% of the variation.
• Because the rise in LGBT identity is so heavily concentrated on the political left, its influence on the balance of power between the two parties is likely to be limited.
• College students majoring in the social sciences and humanities are about 10 points more LGBT than those in STEM. Meanwhile, 52% of students taking highly political majors such as race or gender studies identify as LGBT, compared to 25% among students overall.
• Various data sources indicate that gender nonconformity – trans and non-binary identity – reached its peak in the last few years and has started to decline.
• What kind of high school or college a young person attends poorly predicts their likelihood of identifying as LGBT. The one exception is Liberal Arts colleges, where 38% of students describe themselves in this way. This indicates that schooling might not have a large effect on changes in LGBT identity.
• Overall, the data suggest that while there has been an increase in same-sex behavior in recent years, sociopolitical factors likely explain most of the rise in LGBT identity.

Kaufmann's findings point to,

a vital distinction between LGBT identity and behavior. The youthful surge is mainly about LGBT identity, with considerably less change in sexual behavior (italics mine). The rise is greatest for bisexuality, especially among females, with less change for gays and lesbians.

The growth in LGBT identification shows no signs of slowing down among the young, but there is compelling evidence that gender nonconformity peaked around 2020 and declined in 2021. It appears less prevalent among teenagers than those in their early twenties.

Taken together with the rest of Kaufmann's paper these results seem to offer strong support for the conclusion that "alternative sexual identities are a form of social contagion, incubated online and by educational and medical institutions," rather than "a true expression of the range of human physiological diversity, which until now had been repressed by conservative social mores."

If that's indeed what's going on in our culture then the assertion that LGBTQ individuals are "born that way" becomes less tenable. It appears instead that - for many, at least - one's identification as LGBTQ is a product of social or cultural fashion rather than a consequence of genetic or psychological determinism.