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Comparing Gay and Straight Attitudes on Society, Culture, & Politics: Survey Results

Since our team is called What Do The Gays ™️ Think?, it only makes sense that we share gay opinions!


For the last few years, we've been gathering opinions through reading social media takes in LGBTQ+ spaces. However, this proved to be a pretty biased way of gathering information. If we really wanted to share gay opinions, we would need to take a more empirical approach.


So we decided we wanted to send a survey out to a sample of gay & bisexual people to get their thoughts on various social, cultural, and political topics. But we also wanted to compare their answers to the straight community to show where the differences lie. And there is not much research that currently exists that explores these differences in opinions.


We hope that by providing some data, we can spark positive conversations in these communities and help further understand each other. So let's dive in!


Methodology

We sent out a 13 question survey to 234 respondents using SurveyMonkey's targeted audience panel to collect opinions on select social, cultural, and political topics.


For all 13 questions, respondents were asked to rate how much they agreed with a statement, and given five possible answers - "Strongly disagree", "Somewhat disagree", "Neither agree nor disagree", "Somewhat agree", and "Strongly agree".


The survey was sent out on 12/11/2023 and closed on 12/12/2023. The survey was only sent out to panelists located in the United States.


The sample was split into 111 respondents who self-identified as Gay or Bisexual and 124 respondents who self-identified as Straight. We were unable to collect attitudes from other queer identities due to the lack of targeting on those identities available from the panel.


See Appendix A for demographic details.


Results

Now for the fun part! Let's dive into the data.


We'll go ahead and break down each of the 13 questions one by one and explore their results.


Q1: My family supports me unconditionally



While a 69% agree rate was higher than we expected for the Gay & Bisexual group, we have a ways to go before queer people start feeling fully accepted in their families.


These numbers paints an extremely clear picture - queer people struggle way more in their families than straight people.


Q2: I want to have kids



This was unsurprising given that it can be more difficult for queer couples to have children (biologically AND socially). However, it's our assumption that queer people are also more likely to reject social norms and challenge the idea that everyone must have children to be happy.


It's a bitter-sweet feeling seeing this data, because from our perspective, queer people would raise the most accepting and love children. ❤️


Q3: I identify as neurodivergent



We don't necessarily think that this difference exists because queer people are more likely to be neurodivergent. We think that queer people are more likely to be in-tune with their mental health because... ya know... gay?? It's likely that queer people seek therapy at higher rates, would could translate to more self-identification with the neurodivergent label.


Q4: In a romantic partner, I prefer someone who is taller than me



A pretty funny question!


It's very interesting to see the really high rate of selecting "Neither agree nor disagree" among the queer respondents, who likely place less emphasis on height in their selection of romantic partners


Q5: I like sports



We knew this data was going to come out this way! 😝


Q6: I am religious



It's obvious why there are less queer people who are religious - religion, especially organized religion, tends to be more antagonistic towards us. And this data paints that picture very clearly.


Q7: I believe in God



Similar to Q6, queer people tend to be more likely to shy away from faith in God. However, it should be noted that there are more queer people who said they believe in God than said they are religious (by ~10%).


Q8: I like pineapple on pizza



A pretty light question compared to the previous two! 😂


The gay community appears to be a little "fruitier" when it comes to pizza taste, but not significantly.


Personally, I'd rather keep pineapple 🍍 AWAY from my pizza, but the majority of the gays don't agree!


Q9: Abortion should be legal in all or most cases



The straights and the gays do agree on one thing: most of us believe that abortion should be legal. The gay community comes through with higher support by an 11 point margin, but both sides generally agree here


Q10: The Democratic Party fights for my rights



More politics!


Gay & Bisexual people are way more likely to say that the Democratic Party fights for their rights. This makes sense, as the LGBTQ+ population is definitely more left leaning than the American populace overall. According to a poll taken by the HRC in 2022, LGBTQ+ voters supported House Democrats at an 80% rate.


But 60% is definitely a drop from 80%. There could be a few reasons for this. One potential cause is that our survey targeted only Gay & Bisexual people instead of the full LGBTQ+ populace, and it's possible that the "LGB" skew more right than the "TQ+". Another potential reason is that since 2023, there has been a full-on attack on LGBTQ+ rights from the Republican Party. Some members of the LGBTQ+ populace may feel like the Democratic Party is not doing enough to fight for our rights.


Q11: The Republican Party fights for my rights



Unsurprisingly, Gay & Bisexual people rarely believe that Republicans are fighting for their rights (though some do).


Interestingly enough, around the same percent of Straight respondents agreed to this statement as with Q10. Both parties are underwater in this group.


Q12: America is a great country



Despite their differences, the gays and the straights from America seem to agree that America is a great country. Straight people believe this at a slightly higher rate, but not enough to be statistically significant.


Q13: I support Palestinian Liberation



This one's a doozy.


Some might find the gays agreeing at 51% to be surprising here. There have been a lot of efforts to pinkwash the conflict in Gaza. Claims thrown around repeatedly about how LGBTQ+ people are treated so poorly there, that we should of course never support them.


But Gay & Bisexual people seem to see through that propaganda and throw more support behind Palestine.


It should also be noted how large the "Neither agree nor disagree" opinion shines through in both groups, showing that many people are either uneducated on the topic or have not made up their minds.


At the end of it all...

Sometimes the gays and the straight agree, and sometimes they differ. But these groups co-exist in real life and we can't change that.


That's why it's important to understand each other.


Join Our Survey Panel!

If you want to be part of the next What Do The Gays Think? survey, sign-up by heading over to our sign-up page! The LGBTQ+ community is often silenced, and your opinion deserves to be heard!


Want more?

Check out our What Do The Gays Think? Podcast episodes on these results, where we dive into deeper discussions on these topics!





Appendix A


Table 1. Survey Panelists broken down by Gender and Sexuality Group

Table 2. Survey Panelists broken down by Age and Sexuality Group

Table 3. Survey Panelists broken down by US Region and Sexuality Group

Table 4. Survey Panelists broken down by HHI and Sexuality Group








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