In May of 2022, I wrote about Harvard University’s annual “Class of 2025 by the Numbers” through the overlapping frames of gender, sex, and sexuality. The data was fascinating. Surveying 1,537 freshman students, Harvard found that 71.1% identified as straight, 12.5% as bi, 7.1% as gay or lesbian, 5.4% as questioning, and 2% as another unspecified sexual identity. All told, nearly three out of every ten Harvard freshmen identified as either LGBT or questioning. Thought-provoking indeed. Despite the significant sample size, however, several questions remained. Was the Harvard survey simply a statistical anomaly? Was this merely a Harvard thing, or an American thing?

Well, judging by new data coming out of Cambridge University, the answer to all three questions appears to be a resounding no. In a survey conducted by Varsity, the campus newspaper, which polled 600 undergraduates, a minority of students — 49.7% — identified as heterosexual. Within the remainder, 11.9% of Cambridge undergraduates identified as homosexual, while an eye-popping 29.7% identified as bisexual. The last 8.7%, meanwhile, in true university fashion, consisted of more creative answers; with a number of students identifying as “rower”, as well as a host of other amusing sexualities.

So, especially with that last point in mind, are the survey results to be trusted? It is true, admittedly, that Cambridge University has become a bastion of performative wokeness, particularly of late. In October, the Cambridge faculty were pressured to apologize for circulating an email containing “harmful material.” The material? Information about an upcoming lecture by Helen Joyce, a gender-critical feminist. In November, meanwhile, worshippers reportedly fled a Cambridge sermon “in tears” following a declaration made by a junior research fellow that Jesus’s side wound, often depicted in Renaissance and medieval paintings of the crucifixion, could be likened to a vagina, suggesting that perhaps Jesus might have been transgender. All of which is to say that, survey or not, questions of identity and sexuality have become a fiery subject at Cambridge, whose campus sits squarely on the Western Front of the culture war.

Survey of around 600 Cambridge students show that most identify as something other than heterosexual, / Varsity Student Newspaper

So, should we chalk up the Cambridge survey to pranksterism and performativity? Not so fast. The data coming out of Cambridge University is not as unique as the headlines suggest. For while the percentage of students identifying as bisexual at Cambridge is over double that of Harvard — 29.7% compared to 12.5% — both figures have been growing exponentially. Thus, the six or so months between the two surveys could account for a significant chunk of the disparity. Indeed, a mere six years ago, another Cambridge study conducted by another student newspaper, The Tab, found that only 19% of students identified as LGBT, less than half of what it is today. In any case, it is often easy to forget, given our increasingly interconnected and interchangeable cultural milieu, that the United States and the United Kingdom are, in fact, different countries; countries, moreover, with 4,244.01 miles between them. Upon closer inspection, the idea that Harvard and Cambridge should be statistically identical seems based on something other than empiricism.

Across the UK, in fact, according to Britain’s Office for National Statistics, the number of youths who identify as LGBT has doubled in the past four years. And this doubling is with respect to young people in general, mind you. Who knows how exponential the rate of LGBT identification is accelerating amongst youth in university, particularly on left-oriented campuses. Additionally, the fact that census data is not collected anonymously — especially when polling youths, likely to be living at home with their parents — cannot be overlooked. All of which is to say, the Cambridge figures may be more honest and up-to-date than anomalous and up-to-mischief. Indeed, on this point, the findings of the Varsity survey tally rather well with another recent survey conducted by Cherwell, the student paper at the neighbouring Oxford, which also found that 49% of students identified as heterosexual — with 33% identifying as bisexual.

Perhaps with a more comparable sample size and contemporaneous timeframe, the data coming out of Cambridge would have more resembled that of Harvard. Perhaps not. Yet, whatever the case may be, the fact that students feel free to express themselves in such a way — rather than feel the need to lie, hide, or hedge their bets — stands as a testament to how far we have come, as well as the continuing spirit of liberalism, which, despite growing quieter in some pockets of society, continues to deliver results. In my original Harvard piece, I began by paying respect to the pioneering work of Peter Tatchell, who would once have considered the progress (and percentages) of today unimaginable. Now, reflecting on the goings-on at Cambridge, I find myself thinking of Tatchell once more; his early activism, particularly, when the results of such polls — thanks to yesteryear’s social mores and safety concerns — would have returned in the single digits, in the decimal places. Despite the seeming verticality of the uphill battle, however, Tatchell was hopeful. If Cambridge is anything to go by, he was right to be.

Published Dec 20, 2022