How queer are we?

[Martin Bohnet]

Today, 17th of May, is IDAHOBIT - the International Day Against HOmo-, Bi-, Inter- and Transphobia, celebrating the date on which the WHO removed homosexuality from its "international classification of diseases" in 1990. For Germans like me, the numbers 17 5 has an additional significance: §175 StGB was the provision declaring consensual acts between adult men illegal, and one of the very few laws the young Federal Republic of Germany kept in its harsh third Reich version until 1969, with a much softened version intact until 1994. To this very day, 69 countries world wide punish same-sex sexual acts between adults in private -this includes capital punishment in 11 countries (6 of them actually enforce this, in 5 it is theoretically possible). So raising awareness is as necessary as ever. But enough of the dark facts: let's ask the question: how queer is the PBS?
 
I've learned long ago that I'm not the only gay man in this particular village. Fact is: you (almost) never are. Not in in your community, not at work, not in your sports club, rarely in your wider family. But one very often feels like it, because most of us constantly ask ourselves the question: Is it safe to be myself in this particular place and circumstance?
Luckily, in most western countries it is these days - and the more of us are open and visible, the more the general public learns to accept us as a part of, well, normal every day life. There are no really definite staistical numbers - realistic estimates range from 5 to about 10% of the population when including the full spectrum of Homo-, Bi-, Pan- and Asexuality, Transgender, Intersex or nonbinary people. So let's ask a heretical question: are we within "normal" statistical range of these identities in the PBS or do we differ? I may have a theory, but what do you think?
 

[David Pilling]

More than 50% of the popualtion consider they are in the best 50% of drivers. Does your question not tell us more about the people answering it than the data.

PBS membership is out of kilter with averages, unless you start from a set of time rich US citizens with large gardens.

[Robert_Parks]

As with another large community I am in (long hair (LHC), fwiw), I would expect the numbers to be different from the average. I would also expect people to be more willing to speak, than in everyday life.

But me? Other than being poly and a pleasure pusher, not queer.

Robert
in SF, the City I came to as soon as I could.

[Randy Linke]

Not quite to the point, but I once worked in one of my favorite jobs, as a server in a high end restaurant (I would not do it again but loved it at the time).  There was a staff meeting about hiring a new server.  The two women on staff, both straight,  complained there needed to be another woman on staff as they were in the minority.  I joking interjected that as the only straight man I was in the minority.  We all knew who we were and no one had a problem with it and we had a good time working together.

[MarcR]

I believe that one's sexuality is a private matter not suitable for general discussion.

I have no issue with those who might disagree with me.

[Martin Bohnet]

More than 50% of the popualtion consider they are in the best 50% of drivers. Does your question not tell us more about the people answering it than the data.

I both cases it does, yes. Visibility, even in anonymized surveys, is a question of feeling safe.

PBS membership is out of kilter with averages, unless you start from a set of time rich US citizens with large gardens.

 I suppose lots of American gardens seem large compared to the cramped old world.

I believe that one's sexuality is a private matter not suitable for general discussion.

You'd be surprised how difficult it is actually to avoid discussion, if you really pay attention - at least when in a partnership and a more obviously gendered language like German. If I say "Partner" I state he's male, a woman would be "Partnerin". English does cloak that information.

[MarkMazer]

Great topic.... let's do religious affiliation and ethnicity next.

[Robert_Parks]

Great topic.... let's do religious affiliation and ethnicity next.

Go right ahead...I'm pretty sure you can set up polls with user added options in vbulletin these days.

[David Pilling]

The TV gardening programs feature people who are plant mad and live in tiny apartments - it is surprising what can be done, but the way to bet is space.

Some days it is said that charities ("non-profits") must demonstrate that they benefit all of society, not just a clique. You might get to have a survey.

The original question is asking what people believe the answer to a question is, not asking them the question.

If you want the funding to carry on, better answer "the same as society in general to an uncanny degree".

[Jan Jeddeloh]

Straight woman here.  It's always been my experience the horticultural world doesn't give a damn who you sleep or live with as long as you want to talk plants. I don't know what we'd do with out "gays". I live in Portland, Oregon which is a pretty gay  etc friendly place.  Go out into the boondocks of coastal, eastern or southern Oregon it is probably different.  Those areas are full of gun-toting Trumpies.  

[Martin Bohnet]

I already wrote I had a theory - for now no one answering got even slightly in my direction, but I will elaborate anyway - I admit it may be a German thing, but actually, plants and gardening isn't seen as a really masculine thing here - from the machismo perspective, if you grow plants, everything that's not a chilli pepper with more than 100000 Scoville (Habanero +) is suspect. But even outside caricature-ish thinking, men may grow tomatoes to feed the family, pumpkins if they have a size fetish, or zucchini it they want to drown the neighborhood (yes Dad, I'm talking about you!),  but the flower garden is classical women's territory. so, growing fancy stuff like amaryllids and orchids has a queer connotation, even though we have (as far as I know straight) male gardening legends like Karl Förster.

Of course it is possible that a more British-aristocratic gardening tradition with more appreciation of obsessive behavior does not show this effect...

[David Pilling]

In the UK there has been a tradition of masculine, working class, flower growing. The men who worked down the mines or in the mills, lived in tiny houses, had allotments, and competed to grow auriculas, or chrysanthemums.

From a poor, Northern perspective,  granddad had an allotment and as well as potatoes, he'd grow some flowers. That's how it was. Allotments were a male thing. Presumably at the end of the day granddad took the flowers home and gave them to grandma along with the potatoes.

The rich on the other hand had huge estates, teams of gardeners and sent out plant hunters. The Duke of Marlborough employing Capability Brown to redesign his estate was showing how he could dominate nature.

[ksayce]

I have always enjoyed non-binary folks in gardening, because they bring wonderful design energy to the gardening esthetic. I'm thinking Heronswood, Cistus, Joy Creek, and locally, Bradley Huson, who designed three gardens that were in a recent garden tour in Oysterville, WA. 

But do I care about anyone's orientation? Not at all. It's the soil and the plants that matter.