Gay Men Earn Degrees at Highest Rate, Study Finds

November 30, 2021 10:36 AM

Roughly 52 percent of gay men in the U.S. have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 36 percent of all adults. Mittleman said that gay men of every racial and ethnic group outperformed their straight male counterparts. “I think it’s especially striking within the Asian American population, given the fact that they generally have the highest levels of degree attainment in America,” Mittleman said. “Even within that already high-achieving population, gay men earn more college degrees than straight men.”
posted by folklore724 (22 comments total)

No shit. The oppressed know better than anyone that love without power is sentimental and anemic.

What's the best way to turn love into justice? Power. What is power one can easily acquire? Knowledge. Knowledge is power.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:43 AM on November 30, 2021 [24 favorites]

Linked in the article, The Best Little Boy In The World phenomenon, which explains this outcome to a T.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 10:50 AM on November 30, 2021 [5 favorites]

I wonder if it's not also affected by the number of people for whom Going To College is their ticket out of a closeted existence in socially-conservative, small-town America, and into a world where they can be themselves? That was certainly the case for a number of people I know, and they were highly motivated to get into college.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:09 AM on November 30, 2021 [79 favorites]

That was certainly the case for a number of people I know, and they were highly motivated to get into college.

That was the case for me, going away to University was my way out.

I also wonder if the perception of how gay friendly different professions are doesn't motivate this as well. Maybe it's just me, but I tend to think white collar work places are more likely to be tolerant than blue collar ones, which may provide some other motivation to go to university.
posted by selenized at 11:22 AM on November 30, 2021 [18 favorites]

The people who don't get "their ticket out" might also be more likely to live in the closet.
posted by grokus at 11:26 AM on November 30, 2021 [37 favorites]

It's hard to even find a gay bar unless you live in a moderately sized city. College is an easy way to get to a place where it's even possible to meet other gay men, and at that age you're highly motivated to figure out a way to do that.
posted by zixyer at 11:26 AM on November 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

if you're a straight person speculating about this subject, can you just indicate that in some way so that my eye doesn't start twitching too much as I read through the comments?
posted by roger ackroyd at 11:34 AM on November 30, 2021 [14 favorites]

“I think it’s especially striking within the Asian American population, given the fact that they generally have the highest levels of degree attainment in America,” Mittleman said. “Even within that already high-achieving population, gay men earn more college degrees than straight men.”

APIDA folks have more degrees because your fucking immigration system only specifically allows people from Asia with high educational attainment into the country. no poors, no high school grads, and barely even people with 'just' masters can get in these days

we're not a 'high-achieving' population and a professor of sociology should fucking know better
posted by paimapi at 11:58 AM on November 30, 2021 [30 favorites]

[High|low]-achieving and [over|under]-performing feel like unhelpfully loaded descriptors to me. Maybe they're terms of art in this particular sub-field of social science research, but as a layperson trying to engage with the research they strike me as bringing in a distracting value connotation.
posted by dusty potato at 12:09 PM on November 30, 2021 [4 favorites]

Wait... So...wait. The idea behind the paper around page 10 is that gay boys are more like girls and thus have more girl-like achievements; bisexual boys are more like girls than straight boys are, and so have a little bit more girl power; straight boys aren't enough like girls to have girl power in school? And then the picture flips for lesbian girls because they're too boy for girl power? I mean, tell me I'm reading that wrong or something. I'm not sure I can move any further through the paper after that.
posted by mittens at 12:11 PM on November 30, 2021 [7 favorites]

I think a better framing is that, if you pitch toxic masculinity as a virtue to high school jocks, you are likely positioning a lack of intellectual curiosity beyond the limitations of blue collar employment. You have to want to escape and have the means to do so. And for guys guys that don't like guys that want to be manly guys what better way to stick it to the system is there then to fail to be educated? Your book learning doesn't pay today what 16 on center pays. Its like a whole generation of guys was not pushed to do more than provide for the family and some took it as: NOW! instead of planning a longer term investment. Meanwhile girls were actively encouraged to succeed and do better than historical housewives. We handed these same blue collar virtuosos the concept that unions were bad and that it was china's fault that their jobs weren't there. And they saw the nerds escape to college, leaving a vacuum of role models asides from people who were already dying from slowly crumbling underfunded infrastructure as the politicians they to lower their taxes do so by gutting what funding goes to their jobs. So these manly men resent the women that leave as well as the men that leave and believe that those folks that have left aren't working manly work.

So yeah, as a cis-white-college-educated male, I can tell you - I feel far more aligned to anyone that wanted to leave... and what gay person wants to stay in a dead end town with a toxic culture? You don't need to make America Great Again, you need to recognize that where your standing is shit because of the culture of ignorance fostered in the small towns so many folks want to escape.
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:58 PM on November 30, 2021 [16 favorites]

mittens, are you referring to the section titled "LGB Students in America's Schools"? I think you are reading it at least a little wrong? It's not so much about some kind of intrinsic "girl power = better at school" so much as it is about external factors and perceptions.

What I think the author is saying in that section is that LGB boys, while being at risk of social consequences for being perceived as less masculine, may be academically advantaged by dodging the predominant view that masculinity in part means being too cool for school. And in an environment where teachers "criminalize boys' masculinities" being perceived as less-masculine actually functions as a boon.

For LGB girls the story is much different, since inasmuch as LGB girls are perceived (by themselves or others) as more masculine than their straight counterparts, it likewise encourages a skeptical view of academics (too cool for school) as well as making them more likely to be the targets for the sort of behaviors that "criminalize boys' masculinities" thereby compounding the academic effects of being LGB with the social ones.

Essentially he's just saying that insofar as "more masculine" correlates with "less academically achieving" this effect functions differently for LGB boys than girls. Certainly one can take issue with this framing (I find it simplistic at best) but I don't think it's illogical within its own confines.
posted by axiom at 1:08 PM on November 30, 2021 [6 favorites]

The process axiom describes also might explain why "college gets you out of a mean small town" would be operating more strongly for non-straight young men than non-straight young women, which does seem to be part of their data (IANAstatistician).
posted by clew at 1:37 PM on November 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

Toxic masculinity is toxic in part because it is anti-intellectual. Straight men are exposed to high doses of this toxin. Gay men are exposed to lower doses and straight women least of all.
posted by OnceUponATime at 2:52 PM on November 30, 2021 [6 favorites]

What is power one can easily acquire? Knowledge.

True, it's much easier to "acquire knowledge" than to become a billionaire. "Acquiring knowledge" is a possibility for a large minority of the population, but acquiring billions is virtually an impossibility for everyone.
posted by cinchona at 6:58 PM on November 30, 2021

What I think the author is saying in that section is that LGB boys, while being at risk of social consequences for being perceived as less masculine, may be academically advantaged by dodging the predominant view that masculinity in part means being too cool for school. And in an environment where teachers "criminalize boys' masculinities" being perceived as less-masculine actually functions as a boon.

That was my interpretation, and it’s certainly compatible with my experience in California public schools in the 90s. With a few exceptions, the mainstream white male culture featured disrespect for authority, discouraged academic interests, and took for granted the idea that men could live as well as their parents despite that. Honors / AP classes were usually quite skewed from the overall school demographics to the point where I’d receive spontaneous aggression for doing well.

There are many factors which can push someone away from that worldview but given the degree to which it centered homophobia, I’d definitely believe that doing well academically would be doubly appealing as both a way of rejecting that toxic culture and finding a secure place outside. I am straight and was raised in a fundamentalist religion which regarded homosexuality as a grave sin and I still found the pervasive anti-gay slurs and violence disturbing – I can only imagine what it would have felt like to be more than a witness to it.
posted by adamsc at 6:24 AM on December 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

I'm not surprised about the number of gay men having at least a bachelor's degree. I am surprised that according to the source, only 36% of US adults have a bachelor's degree. Somehow, I was under the impression it was higher...closer to 50% or more. Which means far fewer US adults have advanced degrees. Guess I live in a bubble.
posted by Oh_Bobloblaw at 8:33 AM on December 1, 2021

One other thing — financial independence is REALLY important if you don’t have the option of moving back in with your parents after college, either because they don’t want you around or because you know it would destroy you.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:35 AM on December 1, 2021 [7 favorites]

I found that # surprising because last I checked it was closer to 32%, at least according to the ACS.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:57 PM on December 1, 2021

Gay men tend to plan for the future differently as well, since it's extremely common to be locked out of any financial support from the family, and to not be able to count on any future descendants for care or assistance in old age.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 5:53 AM on December 2, 2021

<Ctrl-F>confirmed

No hits. I commend every last one of you.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:03 AM on December 3, 2021

The statistics may be skewed by the fact that there may be plenty of heterosexual men who are in the closet about having a bachelor's degree.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:05 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]