Poll Shows Gen Z Adopting Their Own Labels for Sexuality

An assumption driving a moral panic on the right is that young people are somehow being "indoctrinated" into sexualities other than strictly heterosexual, as sex education or acknowledgement of LGBTQ+ people and their contributions in schools could somehow transform students' innate sexualities.

Indeed, notoriously homophobic Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, whose career has long included attacks on LGBTQ+ people, their families, and their freedoms, recently sought to fundraise off a poll that, as BI's did, shows greater numbers of young people are now willing to say they are something other than straight.

Johnson's fundraising message almost literally sought to demonize non-heterosexual Americans, injecting religion into the matter with the rhetorical question, "Does America need more God, Patriot?" declaring that Americans "live in a depraved culture," and fretting that "God may allow our nation to enter into a time of judgment for our collective sins."

But it's neither a matter of sinfulness nor essential human sexuality changing, Hammack suggested, as much as social stigma falling away from non-heterosexual people simply acknowledging the truth about themselves – a change that has allowed more young people to embrace their identities.