Experts rip study claiming only 48% of teens identify as straight
A new poll that alleges teenagers are gender-fluid is getting
panned by pro-life researchers, a media expert, and a polling professor.
Last week, The Innovation Group, part of the international trend
forecasting and data analytical group J. Walter Thompson Company, released a study
of Millennials and "Generation Z" Americans that they claimed shows
teenage Americans were more gender-fluid in self-identity, and in their choice
of clothing and other product purchases.
"We did a survey of Gen Z for a report released in May 2015
and found that 81 percent said that gender doesn't define a person as much as
it used to," Shepherd Laughlin, the director of trendspotting at J. Walter
Thompson, told Broadly. The new study's findings were presented in Austin,
Texas at a panel entitled "Generation Z and Gender: Beyond Binaries."
Laughlin told Broadly that while fewer than one thousand people
responded to the poll, he was "90 percent" confident that the survey
was accurate. "We're even more confident about this for this particular
survey because we see clear patterns across the different questions that show
that Gen Z has a more complex and less binary approach to gender than
millennials."
The study found that only 48 percent of Generation Z respondents
-- aged 13 to 20 -- identified as exclusively heterosexual, compared to 65
percent of older Millennials. It also found greater awareness of abnormal and
unnatural gender identities, purchases of clothing designed for the opposite
sex, and other related changes in how teenagers view sexuality compared to
people in their twenties.
Several experts in sexuality, gender, and public image slammed
the study and its findings in comments to LifeSiteNews.
Contradicting the data
"The findings reported in the article contradict the best
evidence we have," said priest, social science researcher, and Catholic
University of America professor Dr. Paul Sullins. “This would be from the
National Survey of Family Growth, as reported by the CDC in 2011. That
report finds that in 2006-8 94% of women and 96% of men identified as
exclusively heterosexual. Note that both proportions *increased* from 2002
to 2006-8, when 90% of both women and men so identified."
"Kinsey, in 1948, also reported that 'only' about 90% of
young Americans were exclusively heterosexual, almost exactly the same as these
numbers from 2011 (based on data through 2008). These numbers have been
stable for 60 years. The idea that they are rapidly changing, based on a
small marketing survey, is not convincing."
While Sullins said that "Walter Thompson is a reputable
marketing survey firm, so I would tend to think it is well done," he noted
that "the standards for marketing research are generally looser than for
academic research."
Family Research Council Senior Fellow Peter Sprigg likewise used
the CDC's research to push back against the gender binary survey. "I think
there is no question that adolescents and young adults today are probably
experiencing greater 'fluidity' in terms of their gender and sexuality than
their older peers, and greater than in past generations," said Sprigg.
"However, I am skeptical of some of the specific numbers cited, such as
the claim that 'only 48 percent of Gen Zs identify as exclusively heterosexual,
compared to 65 percent of millennials aged 21 to 34.' This conflicts with
recent findings released by the
federal government and based
on the National Survey of Family Growth."
These results "showed that among 18-24-year-old women,
75.9% reported only opposite-sex sexual attractions, 80.6% had never had
same-sex sexual contact, and 89.5% self-identified as heterosexual or straight.
Among 18-24-year-old men, 88.6% reported only opposite-sex attractions, 93.4%
had never had any same-sex sexual contact, and 94.0% self-identified as
heterosexual or straight," said Sprigg.
Poor methodology
"I don't find the questions in this survey particularly
relevant to the national discussion," Robert Morris University Associate
Dean Philip Harold, Ph.D., told LifeSiteNews. "The reason is the
questions they chose to ask just aren't relevant."
"A number of them are based on hearsay. The group is
not asked for their opinions or beliefs, but what they believe other people
think. For example, 'Gender doesn't define a person as much as it used to'
is an interesting wording choice, given that they are only polling young people
under 35. What is the basis of comparison? For someone who could
remember the 1960s and 1970s, unisex clothes were all the rage. No pink
toddler clothing was allowed during a period in the 1970s in the Sears Roebuck
catalog, but nobody young knows that."
"Same goes for the question, 'People are exploring their
gender identity/sexuality more than in the past.' An accurate answer would
be from older people, since they are the ones who remember it -- people under
20 don't really have a clue about what things were like in the past, so they're
just guessing. Interestingly, the survey does not ask respondents if they
use certain words, or if their friends do, but only if they 'have seen or heard
them before.' So hearing something once in a media report would
count."
"There's not many conclusions that can be drawn from these
questions," Harold concluded.
"Note also that about twice as many young women experiment
with alternate sexual identities as do young men," said Sullins, who like
Harold declined to comment on the full methodological procedures used in the
survey, which are behind a $1,000 pay wall. "[Looking at the age
breakdowns] about ten percent of women under age 25 reported being not
exclusively straight, compared to only under 5 percent of men the same age. …
So it would be important to know the results of such claims by sex (or gender,
whatever we're supposed to call it now), which the article does not
report."
"You could say that the sex differences in early
experimentation in identity reinforce the sexual binary. Otherwise, there
would not be such a huge difference between boys and girls on this,"
continued Sullins.
Sullins also noted that "'Sexual identity' is the least
precise way to measure the sexual binary. The CDC also measures 'sexual
attraction.' 99% of young persons, both men and women, report that they
are attracted exclusively to members of the opposite sex; a proportion that
changes little throughout life."
"The sampling procedures and other methodology for this
survey are not clear to me from the reports available to date," said
Sprigg. "If the data is based on an online survey, for example, there is
every possibility that the respondents were not representative of the general
population. I am inclined to give more credence to a well-established survey
such as the federal government’s National Survey of Family Growth, which did
not show such dramatic deviations from the norm."
Societal effects, not
sexual attraction
"I would attribute the greater fluidity that does exist to
experimentation that is glorified within the educational establishment and in
the media, including online and social media," said Sprigg. "I
therefore disagree with the argument that these identities always existed, but
are now simply easier to name."
"I would point out that in the area of sexual orientation,
the message that there is great 'fluidity' in young people’s sexual orientation
is in direct conflict with the message of LGBT activists in another realm, who
are arguing for laws to outlaw sexual orientation change efforts with young
people on the grounds that sexual orientation is inborn and immutable and that
efforts to change are therefore always harmful and doomed to failure," he continued.
"They need to be asked, 'Which is it? Is the sexuality of young people
really ‘fluid,’ or are people born ‘gay’ and unable to change?'"
"Personally I wouldn't be surprised if younger teens
reported more confusion regarding sexual identity, given the current PC climate
of most middle and high schools, and the lack of clear signals about sexual
roles and identity in today's culture," said Sullins. "But this
will have little effect on the basic fact that almost all persons are interiorly
attracted to persons of the opposite, not the same, sex."
"First of all, what people tell a survey and how they
really live their lives are different," said Media Research Center's Dan
Gainor. "Tons of media people tell us Bruce Jenner became a woman. How
many straight men would ask Jenner for a date? Not many I’d guess."
"Next, certainly young people have been bombarded by
propaganda to convince them to be gender confused or gender trendy. Gallup
polls indicate more than half the nation thinks the gay population is at least
20%. Turns out they are almost 10 times higher than reality. That’s thanks to
the media."
"Academia teaches kids to be different, to embrace bogus
pronouns instead of real ones," continued Gainor. "Instead of
encouraging kids to act normal, we have an entire media/academia enterprise
geared to push them to be alternative. We’ve got media outlets profiling brave
families encouraging transgenderism in young kids. If a young child tells a
parent he wants to be a unicorn, will we have to let that happen as well? Let’s
cut off a 4 year old child’s hands and replace them with hooves because today
he wants to play unicorn. Insanity."
How should social
conservatives respond?
"Social cons need to be worried and take this
seriously," urged Gainor. "Parents need to enforce their morality and
not let schools dictate it. If possible, get your kids the heck out of public
school. Next, watch their media with them and educate them about how Hollywood
is spinning news and entertainment in ways that undermine faith and values.
Lastly, conservatives need to push back hard demanding positive media role
models of traditional beliefs and working to generate their own in new
media."
“I think marriage and natural sex identity proponents should
react to this report with a great deal of skepticism, and ask for more
proof," said Sullins. "As Mark Twain said, 'The reports of my
death are highly exaggerated.' Here the report of the death of
male/female complementarity is highly exaggerated."
"I find it somewhat ironic that it is often the same people
who insist on eating only ‘natural’ food raised using 'organic' methods who
will then turn around and celebrate the wholesale construction of completely
artificial identities in the area of gender and sexuality," noted Sprigg. "We
need to remind people that our sex and sexuality are essentially dictated by
our biology, which in almost all cases is unambiguously and immutably male or
female at birth. We should encourage people to embrace this 'natural, organic'
view of human sexuality."
