18 April
Op Ed by James Madison of American Media Periscope
1 in 6 Americans under 23 say they’re LGBTQ and numbers are increasing… why?
The ever expanding acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) now has more people using it to refer to their sexuality than ever before. According to a 2021 Gallup poll, 5.6% of Americans now call themselves something other than heterosexual. If you examine just the under 23 age group, the number stands at one in six, or 17%.
The main purpose of this brief commentary is why we are seeing this trend, but just in case you wondered, the Gallup poll did break down their numbers by political ideology. 13% of liberals, 4.4% of moderates and 2.3% of conservatives said they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. Women are more likely than men to identify as LGBTQ with 6.4% of women claiming this status while 4.9% of males do.
Gallup added that younger generations are far more likely to consider themselves LGBTQ so this trend should continue. Gallop added a comment which should spark the right question. ‘The pronounced generational differences raise questions about whether higher LGBTQ identification in younger than older Americans reflects a true shift in sexual orientation or if it merely reflects a greater willingness of younger people to identify as LGBTQ’, Gallup said.
We already have our answer to this question and it can be found in our nation’s public schools. No one will dare use the word ‘recruitment’ but that is exactly what is happening. While I obviously cannot confirm every single public school in the USA has a club that encourages LGBTQ behavior, I have yet to find one that does not. The most common groups are found in every US state and the two largest are the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the Gay Straight Alliance (GSA). The stated purpose of both of these groups, as well as others like them, is to provide ‘supportive, non judgmental’ places for students who question their sexuality as well as to advocate against bullying LGBTQ students. Yes, those are the stated purposes, but the reality is that these groups encourage and recruit students to adopt one of the ‘letter statuses’. The reasoning and methodology are very simple. The more students which can be recruited means the more people who will then advocate these lifestyles as well as push to mainstream non traditional sexual themes in society that children do not need to be exposed to… and sometimes adults as well. The ‘success’ of these groups and those like them in proselytizing the LGBTQ lifestyle is due to the most basic aspect of social acceptance. Students who attend these groups receive immediate and powerful social reinforcement for espousing beliefs in line with these groups.
In case you think this is just one man’s opinion, I assure you it is not. It happens to be the opinion of an Ivy League Professor from Brown University named Dr Lisa Littman who coined the expression ‘Rapid onset gender dysphoria’ after her peer reviewed study of ‘cluster outbreaks’ of these phenomena. The study stated that sudden localized adoptions of transgender status is ‘socially mediated’ which is another way of saying that peer reinforcement plays a major role in convincing students to adopt this orientation in their lives. Dr Littman continued to state she sees these ‘cluster outbreaks’ as ‘social coping mechanisms’. In common terminology, good old fashioned peer pressure is causing our nation’s youth to adopt radical changes to their lives and values and many will suffer dramatic repercussions for this. Sadly, teachers and school staff are devoted to pushing these ‘recruitment clubs’ because they buy into the myth that the club’s purpose is to stop bullying. The rest of us know this is an excuse.
