GLR May-June 2025

suddenly references to the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, were disappearing from De partment of Defense websites (along with photos of the bomber itself)! Anyone named “Gay” was also fair game, and biolo gists reported that information about certain fish had been ex punged due to references to gender. The complete list of bad words has not been released, but apparently anything related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is on the hit list. The DOD alone is reported to have earmarked 26,000 historical im ages and online posts for deletion, but that number could go much higher. Soon enough, the Algorithm will discover that the U.S. Constitution contains all kinds of suspiciously DEI sounding words, and off it will go. Reality Bites Back Flying in the face of these attempts at erasure comes a large study of 14,000 Americans with the finding that almost ten percent now identify as LGBTQ +, a record high. The Gallup survey was first conducted in 2012, when that total was just 3.5 percent, and it has been rising steadily by the year—to 9.3 percent in 2024. The best news is that the proportions vary greatly by age cohort, with Gen Z adults—born from 1997 to 2006—coming in at over twenty percent LGBTQ +, compared to the Silent Generation (born before 1946) at under two percent. Back to the overall survey, the fact that the “straight” slice is down to 86 percent is another way to look at it. And lest there be any doubt that this has “political” implications, the party affili ations of “the ten percent” vary greatly, with LGBTQ + respon dents accounting for fourteen percent of all Democrats, eleven

percent of Independents, and just three percent of Republicans. Of course, it may be that Republicans are more reluctant to come out on a survey, but clearly there’s a lot of self-sorting as people gravitate to the party perceived as better reflecting their inter ests. That being the case, the growing proportion of adults who identify as LGBT can only be good news for those hoping for a democratic resolution to the current crisis. Vo ti ng with One’s Feet Self-sorting by party is what voter pref erence is all about, but a more recent trend adds a geographic di mension to the shuffle. We’ve known for decades that LGBT people tend to be disproportionately concentrated in large cities, and the reason is simple: they moved there from small towns and suburbs to enjoy the benefits of urban life. But now LGBT people are moving from “red ” to “blue” states expressly to flee the draconian anti-gay laws in the former in search of a more tolerant environment. A study published by the Trevor Project and the Movement Advancement Project focused on young adults (under age 24) and estimates that some 266,000 have re located to a more inclusive state for this reason. Transgender and nonbinary youths were especially likely to have moved, with many more saying that they’ve considered doing so. In deed a similar trend has been observed for other groups as peo ple on the move increasingly choose their state of residence according to its “redness” or “blueness.” It has been said that America’s “cultural civil war” could never become an actual civil war because there are no geographic divisions analogous to the North and South. But never say never.

May–June 2025

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