Bisexuality rates in men and women

"For men, bisexuality tends to be a behavior; for women bisexuality tends to be an identity," according to Patrick Egan, a Politics professor at NYU (Bay Area Reporter, 2008). Egan's statement is based on the results of a new Human Rights Campaign (HRC)-sponsored survey which may shed light on the political attitudes and distribution of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual (GLB) Americans. Egan, Edelman, and Sherrill (2008 pdf) used Knowledge Networks (KN) to undertake a "nationally representative" sample of the identity and political attitudes of people who identified as GLB (there were not enough transgender respondents for meaningful analysis).

Of KN's total sample, 2.9% identified as GLB (51.2% female). 48.9% of these identified as bisexual, and 51.1% identified as "gay, lesbian, or homosexual." 2/3 of those identifying as bisexual were women, 2/3 of those identifying as homosexual were men. The survey also found that gay men started the coming out process significantly earlier than lesbians or bisexuals of either gender: age 12 vs. 16-17. Although the main thrust of the survey was political knowledge and attitudes, no differences on these factors were reported.

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I think I have to call shenanigans on this whole survey. Half of all queers are bisexual? Seriously? One thing that did ring true was the portion of people identifying as bisexual who said their preferred label was "gay"; unsurprisingly, this wasn't true in the reverse. The survey did as good a job as I could hope for demonstrating that their sample was close to national representation (selected by random-digit-dialing) as possible, but the only nod to reporting bias was the statement that people were more likely to be honest when they weren't face-to-face. I would have loved to see some data on whether any of the respondents who admitted to being queer in the survey were closeted in daily life. I wouldn't entrust my privacy to a survey company, and I'm not particularly private.