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Even the very strict gay/lesbian amount is double in Gen X than the Silent Generation. There is a lot more going on than people listing themselves Bi. The Bi thing explains only the last 10 years surge.
I haven't seen a good time series for men who have sex with men, but going back as far as Kinsey we know that the number of men who have had sex with another man is higher than the number of men who self-identify as gay or bi. There is a reason why early AIDS researchers used the term "men who have sex with men" and not "gay or bi men".
The people who tried to replicate Kinsey's work found that about 6% of men have had sex with another man. (Kinsey got a much higher number which is almost certainly bogus). A good modern meta-analysis gets about the same number.
How much of this is just among ethnic groups who refuse to admit to being gay, though?
I don't know enough about the US context to comment. In the UK, it would have been men who were "situationally gay" in all-boys boarding schools or the Navy. But it doesn't matter - the point is that the number of men who have sex with men has not increased materially as a result of changing cultural norms since 1960, this is evidence that you the culture doesn't determine men's sexuality, only the language used to describe it - in other words that you can't "gay" men by cultural osmosis, only get men who are already gay or gayish to self-identify that way.
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That still sort of fits with can create gays. One thing I’ve found in dating is my taste of female body types seems to have some relationship to (1) earliest gf (2) who I currently have an emotional bond with.
I could see 1.8% of men being very gay and perhaps 1.8-6% having some fluidity. If you repress homosexuality then the extra 4% have less opportunity for gay sex so the gay sex attribute declines in them. They then develop relationships with females which develops emotional bonds and become more attracted to females.
Of course the LGBTQ people would say those people are gay. The bigots would say they can be straight.
From a traditional Christian conservative perspective or a public health perspective, the problem is sodomy, not gay self-identification. If all changing cultural norms does is causes men having sex with men to stop self-identifying as gay, you haven't really achieved anything.
From the traditional Christian conservative view changing a man from “has gay sex and identifies gay” to “has gay sex, identifies straight, married with 3kids suburbs” the problem is gay self-identification not sodomy.
And yes I’m using Christianity as more a fertility cult and developed behaviors that lead to male happiness than if you do “X” you go to hell. But also the latter person would be more likely to embrace Christianity and repent in a way that would lead to redemption in the Christian context.
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