December 14, 2005: How many gay people are there? The British Gov’t took a stab:

As gay and lesbian couples in the United Kingdom rush to register their civil partnerships, the government has released figures showing that 6% of the British population is gay or lesbian. That translates into 3.6 million people, London’s Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

Growing up, I had heard 10%, which I think was based on work by Kinsey. That was later considered exaggerated, and I started hearing some people say 2%. That seemed too low.

So now we have 6%. Assuming that England isn’t an aberration (it could be that too many young kids were exposed to Absolutely Fabulous at a young age) that sounds reasonable to me. And 3.6 million people is a pretty decent dating pool. What do you think?

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