PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND — Brown is adding to the rainbow.
Nearly 40 percent of students at Brown University are homosexual or confused about their gender, according to a new poll.
A survey conducted in June by The Brown Daily Herald – the Ivy League school’s student newspaper – found that 38 percent of students are not attracted to members of the opposite sex.
The figure is five times the national average of 7.2 percent – according to a Gallup poll – and more than double the rate of Brown students when the paper completed its first on the topic 13 years ago. At that time, 14 percent of respondents said they were not straight.
“Since Fall 2010, Brown’s LGBTQ+ population has expanded considerably,” the paper noted in its report. “The gay or lesbian population has increased by 26% and the percentage of students identifying as bisexual has increased by 232%. Students identifying as other sexual orientations within the LGBTQ+ community have increased by 793%.”
READ MORE: BRAINWASHING: As “Pride” Month Begins, One in Four American Kids Now Claim LGBTQ Status
PEER PRESSURE?
The Washington Examiner argued that the survey findings were evidence of a “social contagion.”
“Coming out as not heterosexual is trendy and wins social plaudits. But the notion that social pressure plays a role in LGBT identification is only controversial because the group is a sacred cow,” the Examiner’s Matt Lamb wrote.
“However, the idea that peer pressure plays a role in our behaviors and lifestyles is acknowledged in other less controversial areas. It follows then that if teenagers can pressure each other to partake in some actions, they can encourage them to identify as LGBT as well.”
