In January 2022, Queer Majority published Peter Tatchell’s retrospective on the LGBT movement, entitled “Sex Beyond Labels”, which not only recounted his pride for victories past, but his hope for victories future. Homophobia, not homosexuality, is fast-becoming the taboo du jour. Optimism is called for, Tatchell writes, because “taking the long view, in world-historical terms, anti-LGBT attitudes and laws are on the wane.”

And though unapologetically autobiographical, “Sex Beyond Labels” is far more than an opinion piece. Citing a wide variety of sources, Tatchell backs up his argument and his hopefulness with data. He takes stock, not only of the fact that social acceptance was on the rise (approval of same-sex marriage jumped from 27% to 70% between 1996 and 2021), but that personal acceptance was following a similar trajectory, particularly amongst Gen Z — which brings us to Harvard.

Each year, The Harvard Crimson publishes a demographic makeup of the freshmen crop. With Tatchell in mind, the most recent edition, “Class of 2025 by the Numbers”, makes for a fascinating read. Surveying the 1,965 freshmen (1,537 of whom responded), authors Alex M. Koller and Eric Yan reported that 71.1% identified as straight, 12.5% as bisexual, 7.1% as gay or lesbian, 5.4% as questioning, and 2% as another unspecified sexual identity. With respect to gender, 51.4% identified as women, 46.1% as men, and 1.8% as nonbinary. Within these gendered categories, approximately 0.7% identified as being transgender. All told, nearly three tenths (3/10) of Harvard's freshmen are either LGBT or questioning.

From a cursory look at national averages, Harvard’s LGBT cohort seem to be in a class of their own, statistically speaking. According to the latest Gallup poll, 86.4% of the U.S. population identifies as straight or heterosexual, while 7.1% identified as LGBT (a considerable drop from Harvard’s ~27%). So, one wonders, why the discrepancy? Are Harvard students identifying as LGBT for reasons other than stated? For reasons, perhaps, of compassion, confusion, wokeness, or (sigh) grooming?

For the most part, no. It’s difficult to deny that there is a certain newfound trendiness to being LGBT in affluent left-of-center spaces, as Bill Maher recently opined. But upon taking a closer look at the Gallup data — and, importantly, adjusting for age — the Class of 2025 is less an outlier than part of a broader trend. Inside Harvard and out, across the United States, Gen Z are identifying as LGBT at rates upwards of 20%, with even higher numbers of young people reporting same-sex experimentation. In terms of sexual nonconformity and gender fluidity, Harvard is merely ahead of the curve. Moreover, Harvard’s place at the far end of the LGBT spectrum may have more to do with geography than demography, ethnography, or any other -ography per se. As Koller and Yan note, 90.7% of Harvard students moved to Cambridge from coastal cities and suburbs — which is to say, statistically, Democratic voting blocs. In contrast, a mere 9.3% of students moved from rural areas — again, statistically, Republican voting blocs.

Aside from the obvious caveat that anti-LGBT sentiment comes in blue, red, and purple, this data does tell a story: namely, that where legal roadblocks are the fewest and social drawbacks the lightest (e.g. Harvard), LGBT identification is the greatest — an inverse correlation, which speaks to the heart of Tatchell’s thesis. We’ve known since the 1940s with the research of Alfred Kinsey, as well as more contemporary work from Lisa Diamond, that many people are not 100% straight — which, increasingly, is coming to be recognized as bisexuality. When placed in an open environment, such as most universities, where diversity is celebrated and anti-LGBT stigma is low, more will feel empowered to explore and discover themselves. And this ethos is spreading.

Greater acceptance, the broadening of bisexual identity as more people come to understand that sexuality is a spectrum, and yes, a dash of trendiness, explains why the kids are so queer — and why they’re also alright. This isn’t the “queering” of everything. It isn’t a plot to turn everyone gay, or trans. Despite the activist and media emphasis on trans issues, trans people remain 0.7% of the population. And it’s not all social posturing, either. It’s a product of the decline of bigotry, intolerance, and the rigidity of sexual and gender categories. The oft-overlooked but definitive aspect of the rise of LGBT in recent years is, specifically, the rise of the “B” within it. It’s progress.

As Andrew Sullivan famously wrote for New York Magazine, “We all live on campus now.” True, there are certain negative consequences to the spillover of universities into the outside world — attacks on free speech spring to mind, quite ironically, considering the necessity of such freedoms in the early days of the sexual revolution. But where matters of LGBT rights are concerned, the outside world would do well to catch up.

Even within the positive trend in the data, however, both in Tatchell’s Queer Majority piece and Koller and Yan’s Harvard Crimson article, some rather negative statistics remain. Within the Class of 2025, despite occupying the tip of the LGBT spear, 60.5% of those who did not identify as heterosexual have yet to come out. Thus, there is still ground to break — a fact that, despite his optimism, Tatchell makes abundantly clear. The future is freer, more tolerant, and less defined by sexual binaries — but we aren’t quite there yet. We are well on our way, however, and when Peter Tatchell, someone with more than 55 years in the game, is confident about which side is winning, one should think twice before betting against him.

Published May 27, 2022

Updated Sep 20, 2022