A recent Gallup poll reports that 5.6% of Americans identify as LGBTQ+ as of 2020, up from 4.5% in 2017. Generation Z has the most LGBTQ+ identifying individuals of any other generation. This should be considered a triumph for furthering LGBTQ+ acceptance in the United States. However, homophobic and transphobic people do not agree that this is something to celebrate.
Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer prize-awarded journalist and co-founder of The Intercept, created a Twitter thread discussing the data on Feb. 24. Greenwald, who is openly gay, presented the information and raised not-so-subtle “questions” about the reason for the increase. He claimed the increase came almost entirely from more people identifying as bisexual or transgender.
Greenwald then used this to question the validity of these identities. He pointed out that most people identifying as bisexual—who make up 54.6% of the LGBTQ+ community—were currently living with opposite or other gender partners, as opposed to same or similar gender partners. Though he did not explicitly state this, the implication that can be gleaned from his tweets is that those who claim to be bisexual are actually straight, and their choice to identify as bisexual is due to the label being “trendy.”
This is an unfounded and harmful idea to perpetuate. Bisexual people are constantly told that their experiences are not valid and that they need to “pick a side,” and this is just another extension of that narrative.
The rise in people identifying as bisexual has an understandable cause—sexuality is more commonly understood by younger generations as a spectrum, and it makes sense that many of those people would fall somewhere in the middle as opposed to completely with one side or another. There has been a rise in societal acceptance of queer identities, leading more people to feel comfortable openly identifying with the label that best fits them.
The reason for bisexual people ending up in mostly opposite or other gender relationships also has a logical conclusion—the size of the dating pool. For example, for a bisexual woman, there are fewer women attracted to women and nonbinary people attracted to women than there are men attracted to women. It comes down to statistics, not a conspiracy about an “epidemic” of people identifying as bi.
Regardless of this fact, bisexual people do not suddenly become straight when in opposite or other gender relationships, nor are they automatically gay when in same or similar gender relationships. Their current relationship has no bearing on the validity of their sexuality. They are bisexual no matter how they present themselves. Bi people do not have to prove to anyone—neither homophobic straight people nor biphobic gay people—that their sexual orientation is legitimate.
Greenwald also took issue with the increase in individuals identifying as transgender, and he contrasted it with the number of individuals who identify as lesbians. He went so far as to claim that lesbian culture is being erased because masculine women are being “encouraged” to identify as transgender. He used an essay by Katie Herzog, a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (also known as a TERF), in an attempt to prove his point.
Lesbian culture is not erased by the existence of transgender people. According to the Gallup data, from Millennials to Generation Z, the number of people identifying as lesbians has increased by 80%, compared to the number of people identifying as trans, which has increased by 50%. This contradicts Glenn Greenwald’s claim that the amount of people identifying as trans has increased at an unprecedented rate while the amount of people identifying as lesbians has decreased. It makes no sense to compare these percentages.
This is a rehash of the same fear-mongering argument that is continually used to deny rights to the transgender community. No one is being “encouraged” to transition by “society, therapists, healthcare workers, etc,” as Glenn Greenwald claims. This assertion has nothing to do with concern for youth in the LGBTQ+ community. It is transphobia, plain and simple. Transgender folk becoming more visible in a traditionally cisheteronormative society has caused transphobic cisgender people to panic and spout reactionary views.
Gender transition is a difficult and lengthy process. Not all transgender people choose to make these changes, whether it be due to lack of funds or personal preference, but that does not invalidate their trans identity. A transgender person does not make a spontaneous decision to transition as a result of one talk with a counselor. It can take several years and involve many different social, legal and/or medical steps.
This can involve changing official documents, such as one’s driver’s license, social security card and passport, to affirm one’s gender identity. Hormone treatments and gender-confirming surgeries are other paths that can be explored. There is also the hurdle of coming out and transitioning around family members, friends and acquaintances, who may or may not treat you poorly as a result of your gender identity.
But those who do transition to living according to their gender identity have much better mental health outcomes than those who do not. They report an overall improvement in depression, anxiety and self-harm, and they do not regret transitioning.
These arguments diminish the identities of bisexual and transgender people, and they only serve to further divide the LGBTQ+ community. As a gay man, Glenn Greenwald should have empathy for those within the community who face discrimination from cisheteronormative institutions embedded in our society and the people that prop them up. It is reductive for him to turn around and use the same arguments that have been used to invalidate gay people for decades on bi and trans people.
The increase in LGBTQ+ people is not surprising based on data trends over the past several years. But the need Glenn Greenwald and other people feel to question the identities of bisexual and transgender people sets the country back. We should be celebrating that more people feel comfortable with living authentically as themselves, not scrutinizing their reasons for doing so.
