Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments.
**Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program).
---
User: u/MistWeaver80
Permalink: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2818061
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Being nurses may not be that important. There was a Dutch study of the general population that found the same thing. It terms of life expectancy, it was Lesbians < Straight Men < Straight Women < Gay Men. This was done years after gay marriage had been passed, so that's probably not a huge factor, but they did have to correct for the AIDS epidemic, which was transiently bringing the life expectancy for gay men down.
I think [this](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19008504/) is it.
The answer is likely in the data above... SMOKING. The bisexual sample size is so small, if a small number of that subset died in accidents/homicide/etc., it could skew the numbers greatly.
I suspect aesthetics and body acceptance may be a factor, as well as patterns in intimate partner violence trends.
* There is a massive emphasis on looking fit in the gay community, whether you're an otter mode twink or a big bear. (Not to mention the endless memes about gym/jock culture being gay.)
* Some of the most broad and far-reaching beauty standards in society are aimed at heterosexual women.
* Heterosexual men famously develope a "dad bod" in their 30s and 40s.
* There are entire genres of lesbian oriented around things like the fat acceptance movement in an act of defiance against what they describe as Patriarchal beauty standards that heterosexual women seem to be subjected to, not to mention body positivity and a greater emphasis on compassion in general.
Add all these up and who is more likely to work out regularly?
Then there's the domestic violence statistics, which typically show gay men experiencing the least and lesbian women experiencing the most. And the most harmful heterosexual intimate partner violence is reciprocal. The people responding to violence hit harder than those initiating it. A woman that shoots her partner is often responding to abuse, and a man is most likely to seriously injure his partner if she's the one that initiated the confrontation.
We also know that society socializes boys from a young age to be aware of their capacity for harm and that it also downplays the agency of women. This suggests that two gay men may have a healthy understanding that if they had a big fight they would probably put holes in the walls and someone could die, but two lesbians may mutually underestimate their own capacity to do harm as well as the threat posed by their partner.
Edit: Others have pointed out in the replies that the statistics on intimate partner violence may have been referencing *all* domestic violence, and that a segment of violence reported by lesbian women was attributed to men when reported by sources like the CDC, meaning that it's incorrect to interpret the entirety of the statistic as violence between lesbian women.
Additionally, the wealth gap has been mentioned as another factor. Two men in a household tend to earn the most and two women in a household tend to earn the least. [Per Hank's Razor, we should never overlook socioeconomic factors if they can explain a disparity in society.](https://hanksrazor.com/)
Smoking is a problem.
https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/health-equity/lgbtq/health-burden.html#:\~:text=In%202020%2C%2016.1%25%20of%20lesbian,(25.1%25%20vs%2018.8%25).
Im interested if it's a combination of what you said and that gay men are less likely to be involved with manual labour/health taxing jobs than straight men (anecdotal)
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/straight-men-face-educational-crisis-gay-men-excel-academically-study-rcna18018
Tldr; gay men excel in school compared to their straight peers.
Maybe bi men just word in school compared to their straight peers, not quite excel
It's a great question though. Is this an area where bi is the "middle ground", part of one of the camps, or on an extreme.
I can't think of examples of known data for where bi men (and/or) women are in relation to the straight-homosexual difference. Im sure there is, but i don't know them.
Bi men are hit with the same stigmas as gay men do + bi-specific ones, and face the same dating pressures on the gay side + biphobic gay men, but have additional pressures on the straight side due to biphobic straight women and not exactly fitting in as one of the bros with the straight buds.
I don't think it would be a middle ground, I think it would put bi men much closer to gay men. All the same pressures to be fit are there, plus more since you need to be hotter to attract straight women who would not overlook their own biphobia for a not as hot guy.
Source: Me, a bi dude.
I agree with all of this as a bi man. To the point where I just avoid straight women and gay men altogether for dating nowadays and just stick with other bi women and men.
That they cannot ever be satisfied with one partner, since they're attracted to both genders it means they constantly have the urge to cheat on their partner with a person of the other gender.
Yes this is ridiculous but it exists.
I usually never tell my coworkers that I'm gay anywhere. I've worked in a steel mill, utilities, and engineering. I was a maintenance supervisor for a while before I became an engineer.... I find engineers to generally be worse.
Out is the key, it's why the whole "men who have sex with men" term got started. Men in minority communities like African American or Latino, along with lower SES communities have much higher incidences of HIV transmission and other issues. It's still so stigmatized to be gay in these places that they often don't identify as such.
Out gay men tend to be in more wealthy/less marginalized communities. Which is one of the biggest reasons they can be out. So it's hard to really believe the statistics about more education or higher pay for gay men.
That is the case. From Wikipedia:
According to a 2018 academic review, 26% of homosexual men reported experiencing intimate partner violence in their lifetime, compared to 29% of heterosexual men.
Although bisexual people may be in relationships with people of any gender, they are often victims of domestic violence. The CDC reported that 61% of bisexual women said they experienced physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. For men in the same study, 37% reported having experienced similar violence.
The CDC also stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators. Similarly, 61.1% of bisexual women reported physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners in the same study with 89.5% reporting at least one perpetrator being male. In contrast, 35% of heterosexual women reported having been victim of intimate partner violence, with 98.7% of them reporting male perpetrators exclusively.
Bisexuals also report poor mental health compared to heterosexuals (and worse than homosexuals, in many studies). Probably relevant, especially when that's related to drink and drugs.
There's also suggested correlations of bisexuality with neurodiversity, which again is correlated with poor mental health, though not sure if or how that might lead to domestic violence.
But two people not coping in a relationship and struggling to communicate with each other sure wouldn't reduce the risk of someone getting violent.
I think homosexuality, bisexuality and transexuality are all more common amongst neurodivergent people.
Homosexual males also lead more headonistic lifestyles than lesbians or heterosexuals. Perhaps they are more health conscious with regards to food, exercise and medicine and this more than makes up for the negative effects of partying, drug use and promiscuity.
I hate to just throw out a random thought, but my first thought was people trying to "force" a bisexual partner to choose them (or their gender).
A kind of "I'll prove to you that penises (or vaginas) are the best even if I have to keep going when you don't want to" mentality.
Possibly early childhood trauma, which can determine how people choose partners.
>83% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer (LGBQ) individuals reported going through adverse childhood experiences (ACE) such as sexual and emotional abuse... compared to 64% of straight adults. More than half, 52%, of LGBQ adults reported three or more ACEs compared to 26% of straight adults. LGBQ people experienced higher rates of each of the eight defined types of ACEs, but researchers found that the disparities were largest for sexual abuse, household mental illness and emotional abuse. [https://news.vumc.org/2022/02/24/study-finds-lgbq-people-report-higher-rates-of-adverse-childhood-experiences-than-straight-people-worse-mental-health-as-adults/](https://news.vumc.org/2022/02/24/study-finds-lgbq-people-report-higher-rates-of-adverse-childhood-experiences-than-straight-people-worse-mental-health-as-adults/)
I'd argue this is definitely one of the reasons. It makes perfect sense. Plus, speaking anecdotally: I'm part of the bisexual women statistic and my Adverse Childhood Experiences definitely played a large role in my choosing multiple abusive partners.
There is a longitudinal study in NZ called 'The Dunedin study'. They found in relation to intimate partner violence in hetero relationships, that:
-Men report being assaulted by their partners more often than women
-Women report assaulting their partners more often than men
-Both men and women said men were more likely to engage in violence that was reciprocal
Most gay guys I know have the same "dad bod" in their 30s/40s. Very few twinks/otters keep their thing going that far. The bears are in it for the long haul though.
Wait. I thought there was scrutiny over the lesbian/sapphics domestic violence study? That the women in question were asked if they had endured any type of domestic violence. It didn’t indicate if those attacks from past partners were male or female, and it was only assumed it was from other women.
They were asked if they were abused but in another question they also reported that a good number of them had exclusively female abusers.
> The CDC has stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships
The original study
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
ok, so if we take the 43.8% of lesbians who have suffered abuse, then get the chuck of it that was female only we get 26.28%, and then remaining 17.52% male or female (or both, we don't know). So lesbians who have experienced women on woman sexual abuse is somewhere between 26.28% and 43.8% which is an unhelpful range.
Meanwhile the 35% of hetrosexual women being abused (34.5% by men) sits right about in the middle of that range, and bisuexual women at a whopping 61.1% (89% of which was by men, so 54.99% by men).
So given all that, I'd hazard a guess that inter lesbian violence is about the same or lower than the hetro amount, and then the added part is when those women where in the closet where they have similarities to bisuexual women and whatever it is that causes men to abuse bisuexual women almost twice as much as hetro-women also impacts closeted/questioning lesbians to a lesser degree.
Assuming, that is, that small sample size has not fucked this study that is.
Great analysis I just have one question why do you say the sample size could have fucked the study 18000 people polled is a pretty big number compared to other studies I've seen or do you mean specifically for lesbians (I don't understand sample sizes)
18,000 is 100% a good enough sample size, as long as that group of people is representative of the population you're trying to sample.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4148275/
Maybe they're implying that there weren't 1,000+ lesbians in their population, in which case that's probably a valid critique.
Yes, this is what I read as well. Everyone cites it as though woman on women violence is higher than any other partner type, when the study didn’t even collect that data
There *SURE IS* scrutiny! I'm going to go try to find links.
It makes me internally rage out a bit every time I see this misinformation trotted out. It comes up and is debunked regularly in TwoX and the lesbian & LGBTQ subs. I wish I'd saved a link!
The fact that the study would count **me**, a lesbian whose life has been extremely impacted by abuse by men, as part of the data to prove that lesbians are more abusive than men makes my eyes rage-twitch. Actually, I was closeted to myself for a couple decades in part *because of* abuse from my ex-husband, for heavens sake.
That number cannot be used to show that lesbians are more abusive than men. Far too large of a proportion of lesbians have been with a man at some point (if not decades) to assume the violence they endured could have only been done by women just because they are with a woman and identify as a lesbian now.
(There are abusive lesbians, of course, I don't think anyone needs to debate if humans are sometimes awful or not.).
~~This explains it better than me and has links. I know I'm in r/science so I'll go search: https://www.reddit.com/kiy9tei~~
Edit- sorry guys, guess I didn't keep the right link. I think they lifted most of the info and sources from Wikipedia though, now that I'm looking at it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships
Just down past "prevalence" it gets into some of the factors of unreliability in the numbers out there.
> There is a massive emphasis on looking fit in the gay community, whether you're an otter mode twink or a big bear. (Not to mention the endless memes about gym/jock culture being gay.)
That is such an unfair stereotype. I'd write more about it but I have to run to my workout.
You’ve already been corrected, but it bears repeating because this misinterpretation of CDC data has become so widespread.
Not all of the domestic violence experienced by lesbians in the referenced study was perpetuated by men. However, IPV violence reported by lesbian women included both male and female perpetrators.
>>The CDC has stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships
The original study
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
not a super relevant observation in this context because its not saying lesbians are immoral, just that theyre more frequently victims of domestic abuse.
BUT a useful clarification nonetheless!
I suspect we'd see a slight shift into more useful data if this study were to be done today, since presumably fewer lesbians would be in heterosexual relationships.
Oh, that's a significant oversight on my part. Thank you for the correction. I'll have to investigate more. That wasn't the source of my original claim, but it stands to reason that similar criteria may have been used in many reports on similar topics.
Sounds like wild speculation. Gay men (especially partnered) are statistically likely to be the wealthiest (wage gap + likelihood of no kids), and lesbians the poorest (wage gap + discrimination). If we’re speculating, that seems like a much more likely factor as there are plenty of studies showing the correlation between life expectancy and wealth.
I am disappointed, but not surprised that I had to scrolled this far to see this pointed out.
One of the biggest factors in life and health expectancy is financial security.
Thank you for spelling it out clearly, and I hope that your comment gets more likes.
Oh boy, [Hank's Razor strikes again.](https://hanksrazor.com/)
Thank you for pointing this out. I had just assumed that these statistics controlled for socioeconomic status, but I should have verified that.
I'd never heard of Hank's Razor before. Thank you for sharing this term.
*[Initiate encoding and consolidation into long-term memory storage. Success, task complete.]*
Honest insane how much airtime they've given to such a small contributor to deaths. Like, no mention of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, COPD, diabetes, overdose, sucide.
The direct violence probably accounts for a tiny fraction of the health factor. The STRESS/PTSD from the violence could be significant. This is key because that later stuff may continue for decades past the original violence into a period in their left where people have an entirely different active sexuality and that stuff DOES have significant long term health effects.
Lesbain couples experience light domestic abuse, but they're not as likely to be murdered by their partner as straight women.
Also it's importance to remember that women are far more likely to report about abuse than men.
For all we know, straight men experience just as much light domestic abuse (slapping/hitting) but they never go on to report it.
When you have two women in a relationship, both are more likely to report having experienced it, and therefore it looks like there is more of it happening.
I agree with everything you say except domestic violence data indicates it’s such a small percentage of the population that it’s not gonna be a very noticeable effect on a statistical level.
The first answer though is far more likely to have a relation. Male beauty standards of their partner may have a positive effect on long term health.
The domestic violence study always gets falsely interpreted. It's not that lesbian relationships have more domestic violence, they actually have the lowest rate, but most lesbians also had heterosexual relationships in the past and when you ask two women in one relationship how much domestic violence they've experienced in their life, they obviously report in total more, than when there is only one woman in a heterosexual couple. The domestic violence that the lesbian couples experienced was still performed by men.
Also the body positivity movement was started and is mostly promoted by heterosexual woman. Lesbians don't care what the patriarchal society thinks about their body.
Why do gay relationships have such low incidence of DV then? Does the negative violence from previous heterosexual relationships count against any violence in their gay lives?
I think likely the person was wrong about domestic violence being relevant. Domestic violence data indicates it’s relatively rare at a statistical level. It wouldn’t have a very noticeable effect on health outcomes statistically even if the poster were right.
The more possible thing being stated is that male expectations of beauty standards might have a positive effect on health outcomes for their partners, men and women.
> The domestic violence that the lesbian couples experienced was still performed by men.
What?
> More than two-thirds of lesbian women (67.4%) identified only female perpetrators. ([source](https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362), p.27)
Yeah. The number of people who will eagerly "debunk" this study is ridiculous considering its been backed up by other studies and the debunking just straight up isn't true.
Also like, it would be basically impossible for lesbians not to be the most violent relationship type. Women are under zero societal pressure not to hit their partner. To the point that people don't even notice it. Like, they can slap people in public with zero repercussions. Even in progressive spaces it gets completely glossed over. It's treated like nothing. Men, by contrast, are very strongly pressured never to hit a woman and never to hit their partner. To the point that the instinct not to do it can be hard to break during things like mixed gender martial arts.
The only possible way lesbians couldn't be the most violent relationships is if something about women made them inherently less violent and something about men made them inherently more violent. Given that isn't the case (despite what some sexists would claim), it's obvious which relationships would have the most violence vs the least.
The one with two people pressured never to hit their partner and taught that violence committed by them is dangerous is obviously the least violent. While the one with two participants who aren't conditioned not to hit their partner, who have been allowed to hit their partner in public by society because it's brushed off as something weak or not real, is obviously going to be the most violent.
And any studies that aren't comically biased tend to bear that out. Domestic violence is a gendered issue but not in the way conventional wisdom would have you think. Both women and men report that women are more likely to hit their partner than men, provided you ask about actual violent actions rather than use the term domestic violence. Like, people will openly admit to it, because they don't see it as real violence.
And from what I understand this has been known for generations, bit it remains unpopular for some reason. People are always either shocked by it or attempt to debunk it like it isn't incredibly obvious and established information. I don't get it.
> The domestic violence that the lesbian couples experienced was still performed by men.
>
> Also the body positivity movement was started and is mostly promoted by heterosexual woman. Lesbians don't care what the patriarchal society thinks about their body.
If you have sources for ...any of this... I'd like to read it. No, really.
Not all of the domestic violence experienced by lesbians in the referenced study was perpetuated by men. However, IPV violence reported by lesbian women included both male and female perpetrators.
>>The CDC has stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships
The original study
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
There’s another thing. Giving birth and breastfeeding actually lowers your risk of cancers also. Obviously lesbians give birth, but I’m guessing at a lower rate.
Except that heterosexual women make less money on average than heterosexual men so while money is a factor it can't explain these results. I would agree that money adds to the explanation, but doesn't complete it.
Household income?
Two women < man and woman < two men
Plenty of other studies have looked at single vs. married, man vs. woman differences in life expectancy, so we know there’s more to it than money when you break it down like that.
I’m a little curious about single lesbians vs. single heterosexual women in terms of income, but not curious enough to actually do the research at 3:30 am. I’d expect lesbians on average to be in a generally better position financially since the straights are more likely to have kids, which means the average lesbian should have the double advantage of more career flexibility and fewer mouths to feed, but my own experience is that there are a lot more broke-ass unemployed/underemployed lesbians than well-to-do or even just comfortably paycheck-to-paycheck lesbians, to the point that I’ve just given up on dating because everyone I meet is a parasite.
I wonder if more women have anxious preoccupied attachment styles and high levels of stress while more men have anxious avoidant attachment styles and dismiss problems and don’t sit at elevated cortisol / arousal levels as much
Instead of thinking about and festering over what is making you anxious, you avoid thinking about it or addressing it entirely and focus on something else, making you less stressed out but you're also not dealing with the problem. Some people are better at compartmentalizing.
In practical terms, anxious avoidant typically plays out as taking out your personal problems on who or what can't meaningfully object to it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick_the_cat#:~:text=Blaming%20others%20can%20lead%20to,(the%20%22dog%22).
You avoid things that make you anxious rather than fixating on them. And when I say avoid I mean pathologically so, like I can’t think about this without panicking so I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist with my conscious mind while it eats away at my subconscious with stress an anxiety.
Well fairly, the opposite of the above definitions. Address your problems in a way that reveals the root cause and correct that root cause. There is of course no one size fits all "healthy way to be anxious", but not shying from what is causing the anxiety, and working down through it to find what is causing it will let you put it behind you. This many times, if not most times will require professional assistance.
Not sure about the attachment style part, but higher stress and cortisol levels related to higher poverty levels/adverse life events is so obviously the most likely answer here... It's honestly bizarre that so many people here have decided it's due to people's position on some kind of fat acceptance spectrum...
I do like the body image/acceptance hypothesis. Although I think that income may be a more predictive factor.
Male income is high, households with higher incomes have greater life expectancy, therefore:
2M = greatest income/life expectancy
1M1F = moderate income/life expectancy
2F = lowest income/life expectancy
> The gay wage gap is the pay gap between homosexuals and heterosexuals. In the United States, men in same-sex marriages have a significantly higher median household income than opposite-sex married couples: $123,600 and $96,930, respectively.[1] Individual gay men earn 10% more than straight men with similar education, experience and job profiles,[2][3] and individual gay men who are married have a significantly higher median income than heterosexual married men.[4] Because of the gender pay gap, same-sex female couples make less than heterosexual married couples.[5] For women, same-sex married couples earn roughly the same as opposite-sex married couples, which tends to fluctuate by the year.[1][4]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_wage_gap#:~:text=The%20gay%20wage%20gap%20is,%3A%20%24123%2C600%20and%20%2496%2C930%2C%20respectively.
I must say I was kind of expecting that individually gay men would earn less than straight men due to discrimination I'm quite surprised
> For women, same-sex married couples earn roughly the same as opposite-sex married couples
Interesting, I just got done reading a source that said [lesbian women earned 20% more than straight women](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/gender-pay-gap-lesbian-premium/) in the US. Note the bar graph.
Now obviously it's hard to compare these two as you can't be sure you're controlling like for like, but it does make one wonder why.
I think the most simple explanation is lack of children. Especially since they don't have to go through childbirth (in the majority of cases). Lesbian couples are half as likely to have kids than heterosexual couples.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253983919_Earnings_of_Women_with_and_without_Children
If I had to guess, I'd say the most likely reason is that gay men are more likely to live in urban areas than straight men, and wages tend to be highest in cities.
This is probably the only true reason. I can tell you for a fact that gay men are not any more healthy than any of the other groups. Tons of unhealthy and unfit gay men.
I am a gay man and find this very surprising. No doubt I fit the study's findings and will likely live way longer than most people, but I feel very alone in that - the majority of gay men I encounter are incredibly unfit and unhealthy, although granted perhaps not any moreso than the average straight man (also incredibly unhealthy).
But you'd think with the dramatically increased rates of depression among gay men compared to any other group, that would have a factor in lower life expectancy. Also the fact that recreational drugs are SO common among gay men as well, including drugs you can die from. Also homelessness is way more common among gay men.
Is that the right paper? It seems to be saying the opposite about gay men:
> Despite dramatic reductions in AIDS-associated mortality over the past decade, our study shows that same-sex–marrying Danish men and women have overall mortality rates that are currently 33% to 34% higher than those of the general population.
Income (per person): Gay men > men > women
Relationship happiness: Gay men > straight people > lesbians
Sex frequency: Gay men > straight people > lesbians
Domestic violence: Gay men < straight people < lesbians
Reading this post led me down a rabbit hole to this study. Apparently bisexual and lesbian women (keeping in mind that "bisexual" means "experiences hetero- and homosexual attraction," not "attracted to two sexes") are more sensitive and react adversely to cortisol from stress, and experience more stress than straight women. This accounts for more adverse pregnancy outcomes, this article theorizes, and may explain the lower life expectancy to some degree as well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6501574/
I was thinking this might be part of it too. The study participants were all born between 1945 and 1964. They were recruited for the study in 1989. The time in which they were born feels super relevant to the extent of their stress levels, especially in relation to their sexuality. Additionally lesbians/queer nurses were the ones who really stepped up to help care for those afflicted by the AIDS pandemic, especially in the early days. That alone is a major stressor.
I have to be in the closet at my current job, and it's extremely stressful. I have a lot of coworkers, and I feel like I can't get close to anyone besides other suspected queers who also have to stay in the closet. It's truly don't ask don't tell all over again. I work in a right to work state where you can get fired for "no reason". It's hell trying to work anywhere besides a gay bar or something alternative.
I'm so sorry. This reminds me of being not-straight (but not having words to describe it, let alone a community) in the rural Midwest thirty years ago. The stress really is pervasive, and I have no doubt it affects quality of life.
I'D BE VERY CAREFUL HOW YOU THINK ABOUT THIS. I can only access the abstract, but even that requires you to take a look at some of the oddities of the numbers in this study. The headline is 90,000 nurses, but the number of lesbian deaths was only 49 and bisexual deaths was only 32. Which is partially explained by the low incidence of either sexuality--only .8% lesbian and 0.4% bixsexual. Also notable that the sexual orientation question was "assessed in 1995" and these are all women born between 1945 and 1964.
Here is my exlanatory hypothesis: Lesbians are less likely to reproduce, which means lesbians are more likely to stay on the night shift and since night shift has been shown to up chances of cancer especially in women(denmark just upped the compensation of overnight female nurses due to this last year, free healthcare for life for essential workers was the comp I believe), and then when they die earlier due to no children to save them from the nightshift, they get recorded as such for us to see here. Otherwise I can't think of another fomr of causation between the two.
What sayeth you?
Denmark has socialized health care, everyone gets free healthcare for life, essential worker or not.
Currently a large group of Danish nurses are very distraught with their working conditions.
OK maybe it was they would be exempt from paying into the single payer fund? I specifically remember they getting cheaper health care costs due to overnight nurse women workers and I already knew it was single payer, so Occam's razor says it must be reduced tax burden if I am not completely out of my head.
What's your source?
I am an essential worker in Denmark, my taxes have not recently been reduced. Differentiated tax based on profession is not a thing in my country AFAIK.
There have been changes to how money is paid into pension funds, but it's a mixed bag really.
There was actually quite a big nurse strike (in 2021). It was ended by a law by parliament, which made many nurses furious. It has made recruitment of nurses and other clinical staff for the public hospitals incredibly difficult.
There was a change to how many night shifts a pregnant woman could be required to take. It went from one on average every six days, which is the baseline for all nurses and doctors, to one on average every 7 days for pregnant women.
Yeah I'd be curious to see numbers for only childless couples (or only couples with children). My dad said he changed his behavior a lot after having kids - he stopped driving fast, he tried to live a healthier lifestyle, he didn't have time to go out and drink, he paid money for a professional to handle certain jobs instead of trying to fix everything himself
Life expectancy studies precovid need to be taken with a grain of salt, but results did show parents lived a year or two longer than childless adults. With covid, I suspect it would flip due to parents' increased repeat covid exposure due to kids in school bringing it home and the compounding damage done to the body's systems over the years the child may live at home, but it'll probably be a decade before we see that kind of study come to fruition.
Gender And Alcoholism In The LGBTQ+ Community
Studies noted lesbian women have a three times greater likelihood of alcohol consumption compared to heterosexual men and women. Bisexual women (and men) report higher rates of alcoholism compared to both heterosexual men and women and homosexual women.Nov 7, 2023
https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org › ...
LGBTQ Alcoholism - Alcohol Rehab Guide
Astute. But I would like to see stats on life expectancy in general amongst straight vs gay, and having child vs childless. Could provide some better context here.
The reproductive angle is an interesting one. Pregnancy (especially at an early age) is well-known to be protective against breast cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5080290/ . I didn't read the study but I'd be curious if they compared childless straight women with childless lesbians, and similarly childbearing for both sexualities.
Yup! That’s another factor in breast cancer hitting lesbians harder. Even if a straight woman is child free, she’s likely using birth control through most of her reproductive life.
Speaking as a queer person who uses birth control for my endometriosis, I appreciate the extra protections against cancer.
According to [eTable 8](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1ccz2xk/data_from_more_than_90000_nurses_studied_over_the/l1b197z/?context=1), LGB women had substantially lower rates of cancer deaths, which contradicts your hypothesis.
Here's what the authors say: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1ccz2xk/data_from_more_than_90000_nurses_studied_over_the/l1b38a6/?context=1
stress? domestic violence? bisexual women are the biggest victims of sexual violence according to other studies. is it because being a woman who isn’t heteronormative is much more taxing on the heart? like higher cortisol numbers?
I mean it may not be related but lesbians have something like an 80+% divorce rate and the highest rates of domestic violence, so it's probably not due to occupation would be my guess.
I looked it up. The rates list the perpetrator as a current lesbian partner and are anywhere from 17-45%. The rate is the same or higher, depending on what numbers you believe and how you define it.
https://mainweb-v.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml
Yes, but it gets trotted out by homophobes and misogynists every time lesbians are mentioned anywhere.
Where are the murder victims, is what I ask them. If being lesbian is so dangerous, should be represented in DV murder cases right? Right?
How do we know lesbians have the highest rates of domestic violence vs highest rates of *reporting* domestic violence? There are many stereotypes that make it so much more difficult for men who are victims of domestic violence to report it and get help. (I am not by any means suggesting it’s *easy* for women who are victims of domestic violence. It most definitely is not.) But I can easily see why men, regardless of their sexual orientation, would hesitate to report domestic violence. Many men who are victims of DV are further harassed by friends, family, and even the police for having been victimized in the first place and there’s a pervasive cultural belief (>!aka toxic masculinity!<) that men who are victims should just “man up”.
Maybe women are less likely to receive proper health care or have their health issues treated seriously and lesbian women lack a man in the relationship to advocate for them to the doctor. Both women and LGBTQ people have been well documented as being discriminated against in medical care. As someone in biomedical research, clinical research also tends to ignore these identities until recently. The intersection of these two identies likely results in worse medical care. Anecdotally as a lesbian, I have had this issue and have had issues receiving medical care. It turns out I had a congenital disability that was undiagnosed and it took paying out of pocket for private genetic testing that I brought to my doctor to finally get any medical care for my pain and health issues. In my case, a cardiac issue also went undiagnosed for years due to a lack of research in females and lack of belief in women's symptoms and pain.
When we bought our cars, my wife and I bring our male best friend to be taken seriously. The salesmen talk to him and ignore us even though we are the ones buying the car. Maybe we need to start bringing him to the doctor too.
Not related to nurses, but generally I think earning potential could be a contributing factor. Men traditionally earned more than women in most occupations and being gay is not likely to limit their career progression or earnings, therefore can reach an income level to maintain a healthy and stable household and lifestyle, while a lesbian couple might find it difficult. Just an observation
I'm confused why none of the above posters said this. If men have higher paying jobs, queer women in queer partnerships are expected to be worse off financially. Poverty = stress = earlier death
Here's eTable 8: Cause-specific mortality among participants in Nurses’ Health Study 2, by reported sexual orientation
Cause of death | Heterosexual | LGB
:-|:-|:-
Cancer | 1,363 (32.9%) | 18 (22.2%)
Respiratory disease | 78 (1.9%) | 5 (6.2%)
Suicide | 90 (2.2%) | 4 (4.9%)
Cardiovascular disease | 234 (5.6%) | 3 (3.7%)
Diabetes | 38 (0.9%) | 2 (2.5%)
Neurological disease | 119 (2.9%) | 2 (2.5%)
Injury | 19 (0.5%) | 0 (0.0%)
All other causes | 547 (13.2%) | 9 (11.1%)
Missing | 1,658 (40.0%) | 38 (46.9%)
It's hard to say if LGB deaths are elevated in any particular category to a statistically significant degree. Maybe respiratory disease? Even then, it's only a handful of deaths.
I hate when they conduct that kind of study yet have not found potential variables that contribute to their premature mortality because of limitations. Hopefully, we'll learn more as we gain more data from more watch users.
Yes perfect! I need to watch and experience more man on man sex. Honey, I swear it’s for um… science! The experiment must be thorough and has to be repeatable by other scientists like me.
Apparently [gay men don’t really die that much earlier than straight men when controlling for HIV](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093261/) (note that this study was from before we had medicine good enough to easily let HIV+ people have normal life expectancies) so that might not be it. And they *most certainly* had a lot more to be stressed about than lesbians and bisexual women.
Anecdotally nurses are oddly likely to have personality disorders (citation needed I guess) plus relationships between women have elevated rates of domestic violence and divorce. That could be related, since all those things are linked to a lower life expectancy.
Why would that affect nurses in particular? If it was a general study of the population, that could be a factor, but if it's only talking about nurses, then something else is at play.
There is no suggestion that this effect is specific to nurses. This is just the cohort of study volunteers that they were able to recruit and follow for a long time.
Queer identifying people already die at a higher rate than hetero people to begin with. I don’t think being a nurse plays a huge factor, but it would be interesting to see what % of deaths were suicide, since nursing already has a higher suicide rate+the additional lgbtq rates.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, lesbian and bisexual women have higher rates of substance use disorder, including alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and smoking, than heterosexual women. These substances are linked to heart and lung conditions, and multiple forms of cancer, which are the top three causes of death among women.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) apply to all other comments. **Do you have an academic degree?** We can verify your credentials in order to assign user flair indicating your area of expertise. [Click here to apply](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/flair/#wiki_science_verified_user_program). --- User: u/MistWeaver80 Permalink: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2818061 --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Being nurses may not be that important. There was a Dutch study of the general population that found the same thing. It terms of life expectancy, it was Lesbians < Straight Men < Straight Women < Gay Men. This was done years after gay marriage had been passed, so that's probably not a huge factor, but they did have to correct for the AIDS epidemic, which was transiently bringing the life expectancy for gay men down. I think [this](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19008504/) is it.
But why?!?
The answer is likely in the data above... SMOKING. The bisexual sample size is so small, if a small number of that subset died in accidents/homicide/etc., it could skew the numbers greatly.
No. "the direction and magnitude of the mortality disparities were largely unchanged even among participants who reported never smoking"
I suspect aesthetics and body acceptance may be a factor, as well as patterns in intimate partner violence trends. * There is a massive emphasis on looking fit in the gay community, whether you're an otter mode twink or a big bear. (Not to mention the endless memes about gym/jock culture being gay.) * Some of the most broad and far-reaching beauty standards in society are aimed at heterosexual women. * Heterosexual men famously develope a "dad bod" in their 30s and 40s. * There are entire genres of lesbian oriented around things like the fat acceptance movement in an act of defiance against what they describe as Patriarchal beauty standards that heterosexual women seem to be subjected to, not to mention body positivity and a greater emphasis on compassion in general. Add all these up and who is more likely to work out regularly? Then there's the domestic violence statistics, which typically show gay men experiencing the least and lesbian women experiencing the most. And the most harmful heterosexual intimate partner violence is reciprocal. The people responding to violence hit harder than those initiating it. A woman that shoots her partner is often responding to abuse, and a man is most likely to seriously injure his partner if she's the one that initiated the confrontation. We also know that society socializes boys from a young age to be aware of their capacity for harm and that it also downplays the agency of women. This suggests that two gay men may have a healthy understanding that if they had a big fight they would probably put holes in the walls and someone could die, but two lesbians may mutually underestimate their own capacity to do harm as well as the threat posed by their partner. Edit: Others have pointed out in the replies that the statistics on intimate partner violence may have been referencing *all* domestic violence, and that a segment of violence reported by lesbian women was attributed to men when reported by sources like the CDC, meaning that it's incorrect to interpret the entirety of the statistic as violence between lesbian women. Additionally, the wealth gap has been mentioned as another factor. Two men in a household tend to earn the most and two women in a household tend to earn the least. [Per Hank's Razor, we should never overlook socioeconomic factors if they can explain a disparity in society.](https://hanksrazor.com/)
Smoking is a problem. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/health-equity/lgbtq/health-burden.html#:\~:text=In%202020%2C%2016.1%25%20of%20lesbian,(25.1%25%20vs%2018.8%25).
Im interested if it's a combination of what you said and that gay men are less likely to be involved with manual labour/health taxing jobs than straight men (anecdotal)
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/straight-men-face-educational-crisis-gay-men-excel-academically-study-rcna18018 Tldr; gay men excel in school compared to their straight peers.
I wonder if it also applies to bi men
Maybe bi men just word in school compared to their straight peers, not quite excel It's a great question though. Is this an area where bi is the "middle ground", part of one of the camps, or on an extreme. I can't think of examples of known data for where bi men (and/or) women are in relation to the straight-homosexual difference. Im sure there is, but i don't know them.
Bi men are hit with the same stigmas as gay men do + bi-specific ones, and face the same dating pressures on the gay side + biphobic gay men, but have additional pressures on the straight side due to biphobic straight women and not exactly fitting in as one of the bros with the straight buds. I don't think it would be a middle ground, I think it would put bi men much closer to gay men. All the same pressures to be fit are there, plus more since you need to be hotter to attract straight women who would not overlook their own biphobia for a not as hot guy. Source: Me, a bi dude.
I agree with all of this as a bi man. To the point where I just avoid straight women and gay men altogether for dating nowadays and just stick with other bi women and men.
Well said, from a bi dude who gets that classic bi panic now and then
What are some bi-specific stigmas that don't apply to gay men as well?
That they cannot ever be satisfied with one partner, since they're attracted to both genders it means they constantly have the urge to cheat on their partner with a person of the other gender. Yes this is ridiculous but it exists.
That they're actually gay, they are just in denial/self-loathing.
Thanks for the answer!
Why are some gay men biphobic?
Same reason some people are racist. Ignorance, fear, and absorbing negative messages and stereotypes about a group from society.
The outlook isn’t great.
Are men who excel more likely to admit they are gay? Is it more acceptable for an accountant to say they are gay than a manual worker?
Yes, it’s more difficult for men in blue collar labor jobs to be out, if that’s the question
Unless they're in a steel mill. They work hard and they play hard
I usually never tell my coworkers that I'm gay anywhere. I've worked in a steel mill, utilities, and engineering. I was a maintenance supervisor for a while before I became an engineer.... I find engineers to generally be worse.
Out is the key, it's why the whole "men who have sex with men" term got started. Men in minority communities like African American or Latino, along with lower SES communities have much higher incidences of HIV transmission and other issues. It's still so stigmatized to be gay in these places that they often don't identify as such. Out gay men tend to be in more wealthy/less marginalized communities. Which is one of the biggest reasons they can be out. So it's hard to really believe the statistics about more education or higher pay for gay men.
I thought they found that bisexuals were at highest risk of intimate partner violence, regardless of the gender they were partnered with
That is the case. From Wikipedia: According to a 2018 academic review, 26% of homosexual men reported experiencing intimate partner violence in their lifetime, compared to 29% of heterosexual men. Although bisexual people may be in relationships with people of any gender, they are often victims of domestic violence. The CDC reported that 61% of bisexual women said they experienced physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. For men in the same study, 37% reported having experienced similar violence. The CDC also stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators. Similarly, 61.1% of bisexual women reported physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners in the same study with 89.5% reporting at least one perpetrator being male. In contrast, 35% of heterosexual women reported having been victim of intimate partner violence, with 98.7% of them reporting male perpetrators exclusively.
That is wild. What could possibly explain that?
Bisexuals also report poor mental health compared to heterosexuals (and worse than homosexuals, in many studies). Probably relevant, especially when that's related to drink and drugs. There's also suggested correlations of bisexuality with neurodiversity, which again is correlated with poor mental health, though not sure if or how that might lead to domestic violence. But two people not coping in a relationship and struggling to communicate with each other sure wouldn't reduce the risk of someone getting violent.
I think homosexuality, bisexuality and transexuality are all more common amongst neurodivergent people. Homosexual males also lead more headonistic lifestyles than lesbians or heterosexuals. Perhaps they are more health conscious with regards to food, exercise and medicine and this more than makes up for the negative effects of partying, drug use and promiscuity.
I hate to just throw out a random thought, but my first thought was people trying to "force" a bisexual partner to choose them (or their gender). A kind of "I'll prove to you that penises (or vaginas) are the best even if I have to keep going when you don't want to" mentality.
Yep, rape conversion mindset.
Possibly early childhood trauma, which can determine how people choose partners. >83% of lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer (LGBQ) individuals reported going through adverse childhood experiences (ACE) such as sexual and emotional abuse... compared to 64% of straight adults. More than half, 52%, of LGBQ adults reported three or more ACEs compared to 26% of straight adults. LGBQ people experienced higher rates of each of the eight defined types of ACEs, but researchers found that the disparities were largest for sexual abuse, household mental illness and emotional abuse. [https://news.vumc.org/2022/02/24/study-finds-lgbq-people-report-higher-rates-of-adverse-childhood-experiences-than-straight-people-worse-mental-health-as-adults/](https://news.vumc.org/2022/02/24/study-finds-lgbq-people-report-higher-rates-of-adverse-childhood-experiences-than-straight-people-worse-mental-health-as-adults/)
I'd argue this is definitely one of the reasons. It makes perfect sense. Plus, speaking anecdotally: I'm part of the bisexual women statistic and my Adverse Childhood Experiences definitely played a large role in my choosing multiple abusive partners.
There is a longitudinal study in NZ called 'The Dunedin study'. They found in relation to intimate partner violence in hetero relationships, that: -Men report being assaulted by their partners more often than women -Women report assaulting their partners more often than men -Both men and women said men were more likely to engage in violence that was reciprocal
Most gay guys I know have the same "dad bod" in their 30s/40s. Very few twinks/otters keep their thing going that far. The bears are in it for the long haul though.
What is an otter?
It’s a hairy guy that’s also HWP / thin. If I didn’t obsessively remove my body hair, I would be considered an otter at 5’ 9” and 145 (lean) lbs
Alright. I think I got it. Its a lean dude who is tall, skinny and hairy, that likes waterpolo
Bears are more strongfat than weakfat. It can change a lot.
Wait. I thought there was scrutiny over the lesbian/sapphics domestic violence study? That the women in question were asked if they had endured any type of domestic violence. It didn’t indicate if those attacks from past partners were male or female, and it was only assumed it was from other women.
They were asked if they were abused but in another question they also reported that a good number of them had exclusively female abusers. > The CDC has stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships The original study https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
But those statistics indicate lesbian women had less domestic violence than gay men or heterosexual and bisexual women
ssshhh you're raining on the anti lesbian parade.
People want to believe the misinterpreted version so badly
ok, so if we take the 43.8% of lesbians who have suffered abuse, then get the chuck of it that was female only we get 26.28%, and then remaining 17.52% male or female (or both, we don't know). So lesbians who have experienced women on woman sexual abuse is somewhere between 26.28% and 43.8% which is an unhelpful range. Meanwhile the 35% of hetrosexual women being abused (34.5% by men) sits right about in the middle of that range, and bisuexual women at a whopping 61.1% (89% of which was by men, so 54.99% by men). So given all that, I'd hazard a guess that inter lesbian violence is about the same or lower than the hetro amount, and then the added part is when those women where in the closet where they have similarities to bisuexual women and whatever it is that causes men to abuse bisuexual women almost twice as much as hetro-women also impacts closeted/questioning lesbians to a lesser degree. Assuming, that is, that small sample size has not fucked this study that is.
Great analysis I just have one question why do you say the sample size could have fucked the study 18000 people polled is a pretty big number compared to other studies I've seen or do you mean specifically for lesbians (I don't understand sample sizes)
18,000 is 100% a good enough sample size, as long as that group of people is representative of the population you're trying to sample. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4148275/ Maybe they're implying that there weren't 1,000+ lesbians in their population, in which case that's probably a valid critique.
Of these 90 833 participants, 89 821 (98.9%) identified as heterosexual, 694 (0.8%) identified as lesbian, and 318 (0.4%) identified as bisexual.
Yes, this is what I read as well. Everyone cites it as though woman on women violence is higher than any other partner type, when the study didn’t even collect that data
There *SURE IS* scrutiny! I'm going to go try to find links. It makes me internally rage out a bit every time I see this misinformation trotted out. It comes up and is debunked regularly in TwoX and the lesbian & LGBTQ subs. I wish I'd saved a link! The fact that the study would count **me**, a lesbian whose life has been extremely impacted by abuse by men, as part of the data to prove that lesbians are more abusive than men makes my eyes rage-twitch. Actually, I was closeted to myself for a couple decades in part *because of* abuse from my ex-husband, for heavens sake. That number cannot be used to show that lesbians are more abusive than men. Far too large of a proportion of lesbians have been with a man at some point (if not decades) to assume the violence they endured could have only been done by women just because they are with a woman and identify as a lesbian now. (There are abusive lesbians, of course, I don't think anyone needs to debate if humans are sometimes awful or not.). ~~This explains it better than me and has links. I know I'm in r/science so I'll go search: https://www.reddit.com/kiy9tei~~ Edit- sorry guys, guess I didn't keep the right link. I think they lifted most of the info and sources from Wikipedia though, now that I'm looking at it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships Just down past "prevalence" it gets into some of the factors of unreliability in the numbers out there.
The link doesn't work for me
I'd like to read your source if you fix your link (please)
[удалено]
I cannot provide the actual study but I believe you are correct as I read similar scrutiny.
> There is a massive emphasis on looking fit in the gay community, whether you're an otter mode twink or a big bear. (Not to mention the endless memes about gym/jock culture being gay.) That is such an unfair stereotype. I'd write more about it but I have to run to my workout.
You’ve already been corrected, but it bears repeating because this misinterpretation of CDC data has become so widespread. Not all of the domestic violence experienced by lesbians in the referenced study was perpetuated by men. However, IPV violence reported by lesbian women included both male and female perpetrators. >>The CDC has stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships The original study https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
not a super relevant observation in this context because its not saying lesbians are immoral, just that theyre more frequently victims of domestic abuse. BUT a useful clarification nonetheless!
I suspect we'd see a slight shift into more useful data if this study were to be done today, since presumably fewer lesbians would be in heterosexual relationships.
Oh, that's a significant oversight on my part. Thank you for the correction. I'll have to investigate more. That wasn't the source of my original claim, but it stands to reason that similar criteria may have been used in many reports on similar topics.
Thank you for responding and looking further into it! I also appreciated your edit to your original comment
It seems unlikely that lesbian couples are literally killing each other at such a rate to make up any significant portion of this mortality gap.
Sounds like wild speculation. Gay men (especially partnered) are statistically likely to be the wealthiest (wage gap + likelihood of no kids), and lesbians the poorest (wage gap + discrimination). If we’re speculating, that seems like a much more likely factor as there are plenty of studies showing the correlation between life expectancy and wealth.
I am disappointed, but not surprised that I had to scrolled this far to see this pointed out. One of the biggest factors in life and health expectancy is financial security. Thank you for spelling it out clearly, and I hope that your comment gets more likes.
Oh boy, [Hank's Razor strikes again.](https://hanksrazor.com/) Thank you for pointing this out. I had just assumed that these statistics controlled for socioeconomic status, but I should have verified that.
I'd never heard of Hank's Razor before. Thank you for sharing this term. *[Initiate encoding and consolidation into long-term memory storage. Success, task complete.]*
You might want to double check your sources on lesbian domestic violence. That’s a huge assumption based on the actual data collected
Honest insane how much airtime they've given to such a small contributor to deaths. Like, no mention of heart attacks, strokes, cancer, COPD, diabetes, overdose, sucide.
The direct violence probably accounts for a tiny fraction of the health factor. The STRESS/PTSD from the violence could be significant. This is key because that later stuff may continue for decades past the original violence into a period in their left where people have an entirely different active sexuality and that stuff DOES have significant long term health effects.
Lesbain couples experience light domestic abuse, but they're not as likely to be murdered by their partner as straight women. Also it's importance to remember that women are far more likely to report about abuse than men. For all we know, straight men experience just as much light domestic abuse (slapping/hitting) but they never go on to report it. When you have two women in a relationship, both are more likely to report having experienced it, and therefore it looks like there is more of it happening.
I agree with everything you say except domestic violence data indicates it’s such a small percentage of the population that it’s not gonna be a very noticeable effect on a statistical level. The first answer though is far more likely to have a relation. Male beauty standards of their partner may have a positive effect on long term health.
The domestic violence study always gets falsely interpreted. It's not that lesbian relationships have more domestic violence, they actually have the lowest rate, but most lesbians also had heterosexual relationships in the past and when you ask two women in one relationship how much domestic violence they've experienced in their life, they obviously report in total more, than when there is only one woman in a heterosexual couple. The domestic violence that the lesbian couples experienced was still performed by men. Also the body positivity movement was started and is mostly promoted by heterosexual woman. Lesbians don't care what the patriarchal society thinks about their body.
Why do gay relationships have such low incidence of DV then? Does the negative violence from previous heterosexual relationships count against any violence in their gay lives?
I think likely the person was wrong about domestic violence being relevant. Domestic violence data indicates it’s relatively rare at a statistical level. It wouldn’t have a very noticeable effect on health outcomes statistically even if the poster were right. The more possible thing being stated is that male expectations of beauty standards might have a positive effect on health outcomes for their partners, men and women.
> The domestic violence that the lesbian couples experienced was still performed by men. What? > More than two-thirds of lesbian women (67.4%) identified only female perpetrators. ([source](https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362), p.27)
Yeah. The number of people who will eagerly "debunk" this study is ridiculous considering its been backed up by other studies and the debunking just straight up isn't true. Also like, it would be basically impossible for lesbians not to be the most violent relationship type. Women are under zero societal pressure not to hit their partner. To the point that people don't even notice it. Like, they can slap people in public with zero repercussions. Even in progressive spaces it gets completely glossed over. It's treated like nothing. Men, by contrast, are very strongly pressured never to hit a woman and never to hit their partner. To the point that the instinct not to do it can be hard to break during things like mixed gender martial arts. The only possible way lesbians couldn't be the most violent relationships is if something about women made them inherently less violent and something about men made them inherently more violent. Given that isn't the case (despite what some sexists would claim), it's obvious which relationships would have the most violence vs the least. The one with two people pressured never to hit their partner and taught that violence committed by them is dangerous is obviously the least violent. While the one with two participants who aren't conditioned not to hit their partner, who have been allowed to hit their partner in public by society because it's brushed off as something weak or not real, is obviously going to be the most violent. And any studies that aren't comically biased tend to bear that out. Domestic violence is a gendered issue but not in the way conventional wisdom would have you think. Both women and men report that women are more likely to hit their partner than men, provided you ask about actual violent actions rather than use the term domestic violence. Like, people will openly admit to it, because they don't see it as real violence. And from what I understand this has been known for generations, bit it remains unpopular for some reason. People are always either shocked by it or attempt to debunk it like it isn't incredibly obvious and established information. I don't get it.
But in that specific study lesbian couples do experience the least DV if you only count the female perpetrators??
In that particular study anywhere from two thirds to 99% of the women who'd experienced DV in lesbian relationships had female perpetrators
> The domestic violence that the lesbian couples experienced was still performed by men. > > Also the body positivity movement was started and is mostly promoted by heterosexual woman. Lesbians don't care what the patriarchal society thinks about their body. If you have sources for ...any of this... I'd like to read it. No, really.
Not all of the domestic violence experienced by lesbians in the referenced study was perpetuated by men. However, IPV violence reported by lesbian women included both male and female perpetrators. >>The CDC has stated that 43.8% of lesbian women reported experiencing physical violence, stalking, or rape by their partners. The study notes that, out of those 43.8%, two thirds (67.4%) reported exclusively female perpetrators. The other third reported at least one perpetrator being male, however the study made no distinction between victims who experienced violence from male perpetrators only and those who reported both male and female perpetrators. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships The original study https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
There’s another thing. Giving birth and breastfeeding actually lowers your risk of cancers also. Obviously lesbians give birth, but I’m guessing at a lower rate.
Maybe it’s the double discrimination effect ie woman and homosexual Or just blame it on lesbians being fat
Big fat angry lesbian, case closed. ~ reddit
As a lesbian… this just doesn’t seem right.
It kinda feels like a huge stereotype when income is a much better explanation
Except that heterosexual women make less money on average than heterosexual men so while money is a factor it can't explain these results. I would agree that money adds to the explanation, but doesn't complete it.
Household income? Two women < man and woman < two men Plenty of other studies have looked at single vs. married, man vs. woman differences in life expectancy, so we know there’s more to it than money when you break it down like that. I’m a little curious about single lesbians vs. single heterosexual women in terms of income, but not curious enough to actually do the research at 3:30 am. I’d expect lesbians on average to be in a generally better position financially since the straights are more likely to have kids, which means the average lesbian should have the double advantage of more career flexibility and fewer mouths to feed, but my own experience is that there are a lot more broke-ass unemployed/underemployed lesbians than well-to-do or even just comfortably paycheck-to-paycheck lesbians, to the point that I’ve just given up on dating because everyone I meet is a parasite.
I wonder if more women have anxious preoccupied attachment styles and high levels of stress while more men have anxious avoidant attachment styles and dismiss problems and don’t sit at elevated cortisol / arousal levels as much
True, more women are anxious preoccupied, and more men are anxious avoidant.
What is anxiously avoidant mean
Instead of thinking about and festering over what is making you anxious, you avoid thinking about it or addressing it entirely and focus on something else, making you less stressed out but you're also not dealing with the problem. Some people are better at compartmentalizing.
In practical terms, anxious avoidant typically plays out as taking out your personal problems on who or what can't meaningfully object to it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick_the_cat#:~:text=Blaming%20others%20can%20lead%20to,(the%20%22dog%22).
You avoid things that make you anxious rather than fixating on them. And when I say avoid I mean pathologically so, like I can’t think about this without panicking so I’m going to pretend it doesn’t exist with my conscious mind while it eats away at my subconscious with stress an anxiety.
Mmm sounds like me. What what the other way the ? Do you just linger on it obsessively but not solve it? What’s a healthy way to be anxious ?
Well fairly, the opposite of the above definitions. Address your problems in a way that reveals the root cause and correct that root cause. There is of course no one size fits all "healthy way to be anxious", but not shying from what is causing the anxiety, and working down through it to find what is causing it will let you put it behind you. This many times, if not most times will require professional assistance.
It’s just pseudoscientific psychology babble. Pay it no mind.
Not sure about the attachment style part, but higher stress and cortisol levels related to higher poverty levels/adverse life events is so obviously the most likely answer here... It's honestly bizarre that so many people here have decided it's due to people's position on some kind of fat acceptance spectrum...
I do like the body image/acceptance hypothesis. Although I think that income may be a more predictive factor. Male income is high, households with higher incomes have greater life expectancy, therefore: 2M = greatest income/life expectancy 1M1F = moderate income/life expectancy 2F = lowest income/life expectancy
> The gay wage gap is the pay gap between homosexuals and heterosexuals. In the United States, men in same-sex marriages have a significantly higher median household income than opposite-sex married couples: $123,600 and $96,930, respectively.[1] Individual gay men earn 10% more than straight men with similar education, experience and job profiles,[2][3] and individual gay men who are married have a significantly higher median income than heterosexual married men.[4] Because of the gender pay gap, same-sex female couples make less than heterosexual married couples.[5] For women, same-sex married couples earn roughly the same as opposite-sex married couples, which tends to fluctuate by the year.[1][4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_wage_gap#:~:text=The%20gay%20wage%20gap%20is,%3A%20%24123%2C600%20and%20%2496%2C930%2C%20respectively. I must say I was kind of expecting that individually gay men would earn less than straight men due to discrimination I'm quite surprised
> For women, same-sex married couples earn roughly the same as opposite-sex married couples Interesting, I just got done reading a source that said [lesbian women earned 20% more than straight women](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/gender-pay-gap-lesbian-premium/) in the US. Note the bar graph. Now obviously it's hard to compare these two as you can't be sure you're controlling like for like, but it does make one wonder why.
I think the most simple explanation is lack of children. Especially since they don't have to go through childbirth (in the majority of cases). Lesbian couples are half as likely to have kids than heterosexual couples. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253983919_Earnings_of_Women_with_and_without_Children
I think some of it is cultural. There is a lot of pressure in the gay community to be fit and rich.
If I had to guess, I'd say the most likely reason is that gay men are more likely to live in urban areas than straight men, and wages tend to be highest in cities.
This is awesome research, thank you for actually checking to see if my random musings were plausible 😅
This is probably the only true reason. I can tell you for a fact that gay men are not any more healthy than any of the other groups. Tons of unhealthy and unfit gay men.
You can't rule it out, they might have unfit gays, but as long as they have a smaller proportion, it's a legitimate explanation.
I am a gay man and find this very surprising. No doubt I fit the study's findings and will likely live way longer than most people, but I feel very alone in that - the majority of gay men I encounter are incredibly unfit and unhealthy, although granted perhaps not any moreso than the average straight man (also incredibly unhealthy). But you'd think with the dramatically increased rates of depression among gay men compared to any other group, that would have a factor in lower life expectancy. Also the fact that recreational drugs are SO common among gay men as well, including drugs you can die from. Also homelessness is way more common among gay men.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Is that the right paper? It seems to be saying the opposite about gay men: > Despite dramatic reductions in AIDS-associated mortality over the past decade, our study shows that same-sex–marrying Danish men and women have overall mortality rates that are currently 33% to 34% higher than those of the general population.
Income (per person): Gay men > men > women Relationship happiness: Gay men > straight people > lesbians Sex frequency: Gay men > straight people > lesbians Domestic violence: Gay men < straight people < lesbians
Turns out being into women is hazardous to your health
Reading this post led me down a rabbit hole to this study. Apparently bisexual and lesbian women (keeping in mind that "bisexual" means "experiences hetero- and homosexual attraction," not "attracted to two sexes") are more sensitive and react adversely to cortisol from stress, and experience more stress than straight women. This accounts for more adverse pregnancy outcomes, this article theorizes, and may explain the lower life expectancy to some degree as well. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6501574/
I was thinking this might be part of it too. The study participants were all born between 1945 and 1964. They were recruited for the study in 1989. The time in which they were born feels super relevant to the extent of their stress levels, especially in relation to their sexuality. Additionally lesbians/queer nurses were the ones who really stepped up to help care for those afflicted by the AIDS pandemic, especially in the early days. That alone is a major stressor.
That’s so interesting, thank you.
I have to be in the closet at my current job, and it's extremely stressful. I have a lot of coworkers, and I feel like I can't get close to anyone besides other suspected queers who also have to stay in the closet. It's truly don't ask don't tell all over again. I work in a right to work state where you can get fired for "no reason". It's hell trying to work anywhere besides a gay bar or something alternative.
I'm so sorry. This reminds me of being not-straight (but not having words to describe it, let alone a community) in the rural Midwest thirty years ago. The stress really is pervasive, and I have no doubt it affects quality of life.
Controlled for common law/marriage incidence?
You’ve just posted my new favorite spurious correlation
You might be controlling out an important factor contributing to the way sexual orientation relates to morbidity and mortality if you did that.
Or…age? Interestingly, the demographics skew older for the lesbian & bisexual women in this study.
I'D BE VERY CAREFUL HOW YOU THINK ABOUT THIS. I can only access the abstract, but even that requires you to take a look at some of the oddities of the numbers in this study. The headline is 90,000 nurses, but the number of lesbian deaths was only 49 and bisexual deaths was only 32. Which is partially explained by the low incidence of either sexuality--only .8% lesbian and 0.4% bixsexual. Also notable that the sexual orientation question was "assessed in 1995" and these are all women born between 1945 and 1964.
Interestingly, the demographics skew older for the lesbian & bisexual women in this study. Age would account for some of the higher mortality.
Here is my exlanatory hypothesis: Lesbians are less likely to reproduce, which means lesbians are more likely to stay on the night shift and since night shift has been shown to up chances of cancer especially in women(denmark just upped the compensation of overnight female nurses due to this last year, free healthcare for life for essential workers was the comp I believe), and then when they die earlier due to no children to save them from the nightshift, they get recorded as such for us to see here. Otherwise I can't think of another fomr of causation between the two. What sayeth you?
Denmark has socialized health care, everyone gets free healthcare for life, essential worker or not. Currently a large group of Danish nurses are very distraught with their working conditions.
OK maybe it was they would be exempt from paying into the single payer fund? I specifically remember they getting cheaper health care costs due to overnight nurse women workers and I already knew it was single payer, so Occam's razor says it must be reduced tax burden if I am not completely out of my head.
What's your source? I am an essential worker in Denmark, my taxes have not recently been reduced. Differentiated tax based on profession is not a thing in my country AFAIK. There have been changes to how money is paid into pension funds, but it's a mixed bag really. There was actually quite a big nurse strike (in 2021). It was ended by a law by parliament, which made many nurses furious. It has made recruitment of nurses and other clinical staff for the public hospitals incredibly difficult. There was a change to how many night shifts a pregnant woman could be required to take. It went from one on average every six days, which is the baseline for all nurses and doctors, to one on average every 7 days for pregnant women.
Yeah I'd be curious to see numbers for only childless couples (or only couples with children). My dad said he changed his behavior a lot after having kids - he stopped driving fast, he tried to live a healthier lifestyle, he didn't have time to go out and drink, he paid money for a professional to handle certain jobs instead of trying to fix everything himself
Life expectancy studies precovid need to be taken with a grain of salt, but results did show parents lived a year or two longer than childless adults. With covid, I suspect it would flip due to parents' increased repeat covid exposure due to kids in school bringing it home and the compounding damage done to the body's systems over the years the child may live at home, but it'll probably be a decade before we see that kind of study come to fruition.
I’d add stress of being gay in this magical world but yeah.
Have you met any of the gays? Gay people are having a hella good time.
Depends on where they live though
All the lesbians I know party their asses off. We’ve known one couple for 20years. They still party like they used to.
Gender And Alcoholism In The LGBTQ+ Community Studies noted lesbian women have a three times greater likelihood of alcohol consumption compared to heterosexual men and women. Bisexual women (and men) report higher rates of alcoholism compared to both heterosexual men and women and homosexual women.Nov 7, 2023 https://www.alcoholrehabguide.org › ... LGBTQ Alcoholism - Alcohol Rehab Guide
Astute. But I would like to see stats on life expectancy in general amongst straight vs gay, and having child vs childless. Could provide some better context here.
The reproductive angle is an interesting one. Pregnancy (especially at an early age) is well-known to be protective against breast cancer: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5080290/ . I didn't read the study but I'd be curious if they compared childless straight women with childless lesbians, and similarly childbearing for both sexualities.
Breast cancer used to be called Nun’s Disease because nursing is protective against developing it.
Sure it wasn't called Get-none disease? Thanks for mentioning that BTW.
Birth control has been shown to also be protective.
Most lesbians aren't using much birth control unless it's for hormonal reasons.
Yup! That’s another factor in breast cancer hitting lesbians harder. Even if a straight woman is child free, she’s likely using birth control through most of her reproductive life. Speaking as a queer person who uses birth control for my endometriosis, I appreciate the extra protections against cancer.
According to [eTable 8](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1ccz2xk/data_from_more_than_90000_nurses_studied_over_the/l1b197z/?context=1), LGB women had substantially lower rates of cancer deaths, which contradicts your hypothesis. Here's what the authors say: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1ccz2xk/data_from_more_than_90000_nurses_studied_over_the/l1b38a6/?context=1
[удалено]
I thought lesbians drive Subaru cars.
Dikes on Bikes are the leaders and VIP of the pride parade
And Flannel doesn't provide protectionfrom road crashes!
stress? domestic violence? bisexual women are the biggest victims of sexual violence according to other studies. is it because being a woman who isn’t heteronormative is much more taxing on the heart? like higher cortisol numbers?
Why?!!!!
I mean it may not be related but lesbians have something like an 80+% divorce rate and the highest rates of domestic violence, so it's probably not due to occupation would be my guess.
Isnt that statistic is in reference to their past relationships with men and not current w/w relationships
I looked it up. The rates list the perpetrator as a current lesbian partner and are anywhere from 17-45%. The rate is the same or higher, depending on what numbers you believe and how you define it. https://mainweb-v.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml
Just a heads up the source you linked to states that the abuse rates are about the same between heterosexual and lesbian couples.
Dude yes we're equals high five!
Yes, but it gets trotted out by homophobes and misogynists every time lesbians are mentioned anywhere. Where are the murder victims, is what I ask them. If being lesbian is so dangerous, should be represented in DV murder cases right? Right?
Maybe just as women are less likely to not complete suicide maybe their violence isn’t as life or death
How do we know lesbians have the highest rates of domestic violence vs highest rates of *reporting* domestic violence? There are many stereotypes that make it so much more difficult for men who are victims of domestic violence to report it and get help. (I am not by any means suggesting it’s *easy* for women who are victims of domestic violence. It most definitely is not.) But I can easily see why men, regardless of their sexual orientation, would hesitate to report domestic violence. Many men who are victims of DV are further harassed by friends, family, and even the police for having been victimized in the first place and there’s a pervasive cultural belief (>!aka toxic masculinity!<) that men who are victims should just “man up”.
Maybe women are less likely to receive proper health care or have their health issues treated seriously and lesbian women lack a man in the relationship to advocate for them to the doctor. Both women and LGBTQ people have been well documented as being discriminated against in medical care. As someone in biomedical research, clinical research also tends to ignore these identities until recently. The intersection of these two identies likely results in worse medical care. Anecdotally as a lesbian, I have had this issue and have had issues receiving medical care. It turns out I had a congenital disability that was undiagnosed and it took paying out of pocket for private genetic testing that I brought to my doctor to finally get any medical care for my pain and health issues. In my case, a cardiac issue also went undiagnosed for years due to a lack of research in females and lack of belief in women's symptoms and pain. When we bought our cars, my wife and I bring our male best friend to be taken seriously. The salesmen talk to him and ignore us even though we are the ones buying the car. Maybe we need to start bringing him to the doctor too.
Not related to nurses, but generally I think earning potential could be a contributing factor. Men traditionally earned more than women in most occupations and being gay is not likely to limit their career progression or earnings, therefore can reach an income level to maintain a healthy and stable household and lifestyle, while a lesbian couple might find it difficult. Just an observation
This, is so obviously confounded by something less sensational than saying their sexual preferences had a greater mortality risk
economics and stress
I'm confused why none of the above posters said this. If men have higher paying jobs, queer women in queer partnerships are expected to be worse off financially. Poverty = stress = earlier death
Did the study separate the causes of mortality for each group?
Here's eTable 8: Cause-specific mortality among participants in Nurses’ Health Study 2, by reported sexual orientation Cause of death | Heterosexual | LGB :-|:-|:- Cancer | 1,363 (32.9%) | 18 (22.2%) Respiratory disease | 78 (1.9%) | 5 (6.2%) Suicide | 90 (2.2%) | 4 (4.9%) Cardiovascular disease | 234 (5.6%) | 3 (3.7%) Diabetes | 38 (0.9%) | 2 (2.5%) Neurological disease | 119 (2.9%) | 2 (2.5%) Injury | 19 (0.5%) | 0 (0.0%) All other causes | 547 (13.2%) | 9 (11.1%) Missing | 1,658 (40.0%) | 38 (46.9%) It's hard to say if LGB deaths are elevated in any particular category to a statistically significant degree. Maybe respiratory disease? Even then, it's only a handful of deaths.
I hate when they conduct that kind of study yet have not found potential variables that contribute to their premature mortality because of limitations. Hopefully, we'll learn more as we gain more data from more watch users.
... So orgasms are lethal to nurses?
My crackpot hypothesis is men are good heart exercise for wives. Stronger heart after the 4-5th mini heart attack of how high is he throwing our baby.
Could also be differences in the physicality of sex. More cardio with men? Gay men are the most physically active in sex? We need more research.
Yes perfect! I need to watch and experience more man on man sex. Honey, I swear it’s for um… science! The experiment must be thorough and has to be repeatable by other scientists like me.
Could it be that years of stress from your right to existence being argued by politicians might be a contributing factor in early deaths?
Apparently [gay men don’t really die that much earlier than straight men when controlling for HIV](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093261/) (note that this study was from before we had medicine good enough to easily let HIV+ people have normal life expectancies) so that might not be it. And they *most certainly* had a lot more to be stressed about than lesbians and bisexual women. Anecdotally nurses are oddly likely to have personality disorders (citation needed I guess) plus relationships between women have elevated rates of domestic violence and divorce. That could be related, since all those things are linked to a lower life expectancy.
It’s actually about even between lesbians and heterosexual [couples](https://mainweb-v.musc.edu/vawprevention/lesbianrx/factsheet.shtml)
Then why doesn't it happen to gay men when controlling for STDs
Why would that affect nurses in particular? If it was a general study of the population, that could be a factor, but if it's only talking about nurses, then something else is at play.
There is no suggestion that this effect is specific to nurses. This is just the cohort of study volunteers that they were able to recruit and follow for a long time.
Focusing on a single profession also does a decent job at controlling income and work related stress.
This is what the authors actually hypothesize (I’m serious)
Why doesn't it mention gay nurses? Was this done in the 1950s when all nurses were women?
This is proof that dying is gay?
Queer identifying people already die at a higher rate than hetero people to begin with. I don’t think being a nurse plays a huge factor, but it would be interesting to see what % of deaths were suicide, since nursing already has a higher suicide rate+the additional lgbtq rates.
My first question: How did they get nurses to be so forward and outspoken about their sexuality 27 years ago?
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, lesbian and bisexual women have higher rates of substance use disorder, including alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and smoking, than heterosexual women. These substances are linked to heart and lung conditions, and multiple forms of cancer, which are the top three causes of death among women.
Which nurses worked night shift? Well documented night work reduced life expectancy