Ivy League LGBTQ+ numbers soar and students point to identity politics
While just are LGBTQ+, students at Ivy League universities are identifying as non-stra♚ight at rates as much as five times the general public.
Brown University made headlines after a student poll revealed a whopping 38% of their student body is not straight.
“Honestly I’m not surpꦐrised by that statistic,” an anonymous senior at Brown University told The Post. “At Brown, there’s no social pressure to fit into a bo🐎x or hide your identity.”
Other Ivies aren’t far behind. In fact, more than a third of students at Princeton and more than a quarter at Yale and Harvard identify as LGBTQ+, as per recent polling — and campus sources chalk it up, in part, to politics and a desire to join an “oppressed” group.”
According to the Census Bureau, 20% of Gen Z is LGBTQ+, far more than olde🔯r cohorts. But Ivy League students far outstrip their generaꦓtion as a whole.
According to Abigaiꩲl Anthony, who graduated from Princeton University with a degree in politics this year, a progressive and identity-consumed culture on elite campuses coul🌸d be contributing.
“Since sexual orientation identity is largely non-falsifiable, many people will claim LGBTQ status to join the ‘oppressed’ group,” she told The Pꦐost.
According to a Princeton student newspaper survey, 35% of the ༺2023 graduating class .
“It could be that students at elite schools are more inclined to be obsessed with social acceptance and professional advancement, and … profess an LGBTQ identity to indicate their political beliefs on a campus that leans left,” she added.
At schools for which historical data is available, the proport🤪ion of students who are not straight is skyrocketing. Brown jumped from 14% in 2010 up to 38% this year.
Some identified as something other than heterosexual when they were surveyed as freshmen in 2019🥃. That’s up from when they were asked by the school paper ⛄in 2016.
And the proportion of LGBTQ+ students at Hꦇarvard , from 10% of incoming fres🎃hmen in 2013 to 29% in 2021.
The most recent data from Cornell comes from 2017, when were LGBTQ+. 𒅌The University of Pennsyl🦄vania is an outlier, at .
🌟Ben Appel, 40, finished his undergraduate degree in 2020 as an adult student at Columbia’s General Studies program. And, although he is gay himself, he said his Gen Z classmates were markedly m🃏ore likely to identify as “queer.”
“Queer is as much politics as it is a sexual identity. Maybe even more so,” Appel, author of the forthcoming book “Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic,” told The Post. “The Ivies have a lot of really privileged kids. I’m sure many are motivated to identify into a so-called marginalized community in order to earn some social cache.”
🍌He thinks a growing number of amorphous labels allow more people to fall under the LGBT umbrella than ever before.
“The ‘trans’ and ‘queer’ umbrellas have expanded to include gender-nonconforming people 🉐and even people who would normally be cons🦂idered straight,” Appel noted.
Anthony agrees: “In some instances, a straight pers🔜on will identify as bisexual but simply continue dating the opposite sex.”
Although Columbia hasn’t published similar figures, Appel and another Columbia grad🧔uate both estimate they are in line with other Ivy League schools.
“It’s becoming a majority,” an anonymous member of Columbia’s class of 202๊2 observ♌ed.
Appel said that Ivy League universities are particularly likely tꦏo have curriculum that is fixated on gender and sexuality.
“It makes sense that these polls were taken at Ivy League universitiesꦉ,” he told The Post. “Students take one queer theory course ඣand come out as queer.”
At Princeton this year, 35% of seniors , compared with just . And nearly one in five Princeto♕n grads this year came out while in collegeꦦ.
Cornell developmental psychology professor and young adult sexuality expert Ritch Savin-Williams believes that Gen Z students are coming out in larger numbers due to increased social acceptance — especially on progress🀅ive campuses: “The shift has been in the visibility and the willingness of individuals to expre💝ss it and to declare it.”
