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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28339 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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This Reddit thread that I saw linked over on rDrama made me wonder if any studies have ever been done about the relative intelligence of straight people and gay people.

Just like there is reason to believe that some ethnic groups are more intelligent than others on average, is it possible that some sexual orientations are more intelligent than others on average? I have not tried to crunch the numbers, but it seems to me that gay people are overrepresented compared to their population size among the ranks of prominent intellectuals and artists. Not just recently, but also hundreds of years ago. Them living in high cost of living areas would add evidence to this theory.

Of course there are many possible other explanations, and the thread mentions some of them: gays have more money because they usually have no kids, gays in poor areas stay closeted out of fear of persecution and are drawn to liberal and usually also expensive cities, gays move in to poor areas and make them fashionable and then those areas become rich. Etc.

One other possible explanation that comes to my mind that I did not see in the thread is that maybe because it is easier for gay men to get laid than straight men on average, they don't have to devote as much of their minds as straights to getting laid and are thus free to focus on other things. I'm not sure about that theory, though - after all, just because getting laid is easy for you does not necessarily mean that you will spend less of your mental energy thinking about getting laid. And being a sexual minority could tend to add some level of stress that partly counterbalances the benefits of being able to easily get laid, especially in the olden days.

I suppose it is also possible that intelligent, creative gays are more likely to come out than intellectually mediocre gays, but I have no idea if there is any truth to that.

I do wonder, though, if maybe part of the reason for gay affluence and prominence is an actual intelligence difference of some sort.

This Reddit thread that I saw linked over on rDrama made me wonder if any studies have ever been done about the relative intelligence of straight people and gay people.

Well, I hadn't seen a catfight over "are the gays or the straights smarter?" before, thanks for nothing. I think the very important difference there is "gay white males from middle-class backgrounds with college educations and professional jobs" are the ones living in high-price areas. The rural gay guys and the BIPOC gays are the ones living in poorer areas/the dense urban lower-class areas, and I think that there's already discussion about the white privilege/class privilege.

So the broad "gay couples are way better off than opposite-sex couples (because the gays are so much smarter and nicer and more creative and just better)" approach isn't quite accurate, even if the LGBT+ activists and allies like to use that to beat 'homophobes' over the head ('you're just jealous because you're stupid and poor and not fabulous at all!'):

(1) Gay couples do better than lesbian couples (they blame it on gender wage gap) (2) White gays do better than BIPOC gays

White Privilege and LGBT Well-Being

In most domains of health and social and economic well-being, LGBT people of color (POC) fared worse than White LGBT people. The analyses of economic outcomes show a consistent advantage experienced by White LGBT people. Fewer White than POC LGBT adults reported experiencing food insecurity, unemployment, use of Medicaid for health insurance, and living in a low-income household. For example, 47% of POC LGBT adults were living in a low-income household compared to 36% of White LGBT adults. Further, more women of color who identify as LGBT reported living in a low-income household and experiencing unemployment and food insecurity compared to all other groups.

Yes, for any X, Black X are worse off than White X, but it doesn't follow that X vs. Y makes no difference at all.

Yes, but then that doesn't become "gay person more intelligent than straight person", it's the same old "Asian - white - Hispanic - black" breakdown.

So then you have to look at "okay, if gay men earn more than straight men, what professions are they in?" and even then, the original thread was not "are gay men richer?", it was "why do gay people live in such expensive areas?"

It got me thinking of all the metropolitan cities from Americas, Europe to Southeast Asia, most of the gay friendly neighborhoods are often regarded the most or one of the expensive areas.

And I think the answer pretty much is "the expensive places are the big coastal cities; there's already the idea of a thriving gay (or whatever) culture there, so if you're closeted in a small town and you want to get out, that's where you head", plus gentrification - as described in the comments there, gays move in to places alongside/following the arty types, the area becomes trendy/happening, property values go up and so do rents, those who can afford the prices move in and those who can't move out, the prices continue to go up as the neighbourhood becomes known as the 'gayborhood' or the Latin Quarter or the artistic hot-spot and so forth.

The well-off white gays will live in the very expensive, hoity-toity areas (and probably be involved in the arts and so on, or visibly associated as patrons, fashion designers, and the like). The less well off gay guys will live in the less salubrious areas but still in the expensive city. The well-off white gays are also probably more likely to be visible, particularly in former times; you needed the insulation of wealth and status to be out (even discreetly out) and get away with it. Thomas Fancypants in the upper class circles of NY or SF or LA can be a leading socialite with a reputation for being "eccentric" or extravagant, and while everyone in the know is aware Fancypants is gay, the media will be more discreet about it - a 'lifelong bachelor' or 'longtime companion' is as overt as any reporting on his doings will get. Tommy Bluejeans from the working-class neighbourhood can't afford that kind of visibility.

It's just more visible if any particular district is the gay district and so that gives the impression that "all gays are living in the expensive, trendy areas and hence all gays are well-off" and then the discussion leaps to the conclusion that "well-off" = "more smarter than the straights" when it's a smaller sample size and self-selected for the richer section

I don't really get this chain of logic here. I get that gay villages tend to emerge in cities. But it doesn't follow that this would cause gays to become rich and cool. Somalians carve out their own little enclaves. But they become poor shitholes. When the Italians flocked to New York they didn't start outearning the native WASPs and running art salons, they formed gangs. They didn't become rich or creative. You might be right that this is just another selection effect and all the dumb gays are back at home pretending to be straight. But I think there's something more. That's not a suggestion that gays are some superior race (they're really not, if anything I think they're less accomplished than their IQ would suggest).

But it doesn't follow that this would cause gays to become rich and cool.

But not all gays, that's the thing! The original post makes it sound like "all the cool rich smart gay people" and it's not, as shown; it's the well-off white gay guys (and then presumably the well-off Asian, etc. gay guys follow).

There's plenty of shit holes and dirty, run-down gay areas; think of the legendary Stonewall Inn (the original one, at least); started off as a speakeasy and was owned by the Mafia. Not salubrious or high-class at all; gentrification comes later.

The better-off gays make a neighbourhood fancy and gentrified and it becomes high cost of living, and the poorer ones move out to another run-down area, or never left the blue-collar neigbourhoods in the first place.

It seems to come down to "white people more likely"; now that identification as LGBT+ is more widespread, common, and accepted, a lot more younger people are identifying as some variety of queer, and being younger means being poorer, as does being BIPOC:

While the pandemic impacts U.S. workers across all demographic groups, the Household Pulse data indicate that LGBTQ+ workers are disproportionately affected, compared to non-LGBTQ+ individuals. Approximately 28 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents said they experienced some form of job loss since LGBTQ+ data collection began last July. Comparably, 18 percent of non-LGBTQ+ respondents reported job loss in the same time frame.

The data indicate that age plays an intersecting role in work-loss experience. LGBTQ+ respondents between the ages of 25 and 39 and 40 and 54 had the highest rates of job losses, while older, non-LGBTQ+ respondents had the lowest rates.

These data are further validated by research from the Movement Advancement Project, which shows that LGBTQ+ individuals with additional demographic intersectionalities face greater rates of job loss. Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ households in the United States experienced higher rates of employment or wage loss, at 60 percent and 71 percent, respectively, between July 2020 and August 2020, compared to non-LGBTQ+ households of all races (45 percent).

While the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic played a significant role in increasing unemployment and decreasing incomes among LGBTQ+ workers, these disparities have been building in recent decades in the United States. Research from 2021, for instance, finds that the lesbian wage premium fell from around 10 percent in 2000 to almost zero in 2018. The Center for LGBTQ+ Economic Advancement and Research, or CLEAR, finds that in 2019, 31 percent of Black LGBT households and 24 percent of Latinx LGBT households reported earning less than $25,000 annually, compared to 24 percent of Black non-LGBT households and 15 percent of Latinx non-LGBT households.

Disparities in employment loss between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ workers may also be driven by a large share of LGBTQ+ individuals being employed in industries hardest hit by the pandemic. Analysis by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, for instance, finds that in 2018, the five industries with the greatest share of LGBTQ+ employees were restaurant and food services (15 percent of LGBTQ+ adults), hospitals and healthcare (7.5 percent), K–12 education (7 percent), colleges and universities (7 percent), and retail (4 percent). These five industries have experienced the greatest disruptions in employment since the onset of the pandemic, which comes on top of the already-low wages widely experienced in three of these industries—hospitality, retail, and K–12 education.

All the coffeeshop waitstaff may be making an area cool, but they're not making it rich. That comes later with waves of gentrification and as enclaves become more established, more identified as 'the gay neighbourhood' and therefore more desirable as the place to go and live when you're leaving your small town for that life where you can be out and proud. As these places become older, the population shifts to the better-off; it's the 7 percent of gays in academia who are making places 'richer', not the 15 percent working in bars and restaurants.

Another report from 2022 on the opposite claim that LGBT+ are poorer, not rich and cool:

Compared with the general population, LGBTQI+ people face significant challenges that obstruct pathways to achieving economic security, including discrimination in employment and housing, workforce exclusion, and lack of access to jobs that pay well and offer benefits that meet their needs and those of their families. For LGBTQI+ people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ communities of color, and transgender people, these barriers to reach economic stability are heightened.

...New data from the HPS [Household Pulse Survey] reveal that:

LGBT households are more likely to live in poverty. LGBT individuals were more likely than non-LGBT individuals to report a household income of less than $25,000 in 2020, at 20 percent compared with 14 percent. Put another way, many LGBT individuals live in households that are at or near the poverty line. LGBT respondents of color (26 percent) and transgender respondents (28 percent) are even more likely to earn less than $25,000.

LGBT households are more likely to report losing a source of employment income. On average, from July 2021 to April 2022, LGBT individuals were also more likely than non-LGBT individuals to report that they or someone in their household had lost a source of employment income in the past four weeks, at 21 percent compared with 15 percent. These disparities are heightened among LGBT respondents of color (26 percent) and transgender respondents (29 percent), which was a consistent trend for the past year.

LGBT households experience more difficulty paying household expenses. On average, from July 2021 to April 2022, LGBT individuals were more likely than non-LGBT individuals to report that it has been somewhat or very difficult for their household to pay for usual household expenses in the past week, at 38 percent compared with 29 percent, with rates consistently highest among LGBT respondents of color (46 percent) and transgender respondents (50 percent). Usual household expenses include but are not limited to food, rent or mortgage, car payments, medical expenses, and student loans.

...LGBTQI+ people experience labor market disparities, as they often struggle to find employment; when they do, they often work in low-wage occupations.

...LGBT people are more likely to work at grocery and convenience stores. LGBT respondents were nearly twice as likely as non-LGBT respondents to report working at food or beverage stores, which include grocery stores and convenience stores, at 11 percent compared with 6 percent. LGBT respondents of color (12 percent) and transgender respondents (14 percent) were also more likely to report working at food or beverage stores.

The white, college-educated, PMC gays are the ones living in the high-property value areas of the expensive cities. The less educated, or non-white, gays may be living in the expensive cities, but not in the high-end areas. Working there, maybe, as a grocery store clerk or waitstaff in the café. But not being patrons of the opera or attending the Met Gala as the big bucks donors.

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