Selective use of statistics in the Guardian

[DipsyLaLaPo]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/19/half-of-lgbt-young-adults-in-uk-are-estranged-from-a-relative-survey-finds

It is just glaringly obvious clickbait (I hesitate to assume a more deep rooted political agenda as lots of these things are usually down to lazy stupidity) when transgender elements of a statistic are highlighted, but they aren't even the most impacted on the graph immediately above?

Almost one-fifth (19%) of transgender people and 23% of non-binary people in the survey said they were not close to immediate family members.

lookat the graph and you'll see three categories with even higher numbers than this. Gay, lesbian and bi.

In fact, nearly 10% of gay men are estranged from their entire family. Trans and non binary are the least affected by total estrangement, according to this graph.

And yet lesbian and gay are the most confident about coming out.

There's a story for you. Sick of seeing stats misrepresented in major national news outlets.

Over 30% of the population regardless of sexuality or gender identity are estranged from at least one member of their family? Holy crap

Your headline should be "selective use of truth in the guardian".

Take a look at AIBU or the relationship board here and you'll see loads of people 'gone/going NC' with a family member - often their mother from my superficial reading. I believe NC = no contact, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Families can be poisonous, we all know that, even if our own isn't.

I haven't read the article, but it'd be interesting know the 'NC' stats for trans vs non-trans (sorry) people who have no contact with family. Maybe the article tells us but I'm afraid I don't want to read it.

How are they defining 'estranged' and where are the boundaries of who is included in 'family'?

'About 262,000 people (0.5% of the total) said their gender identity was different from their sex registered at birth. Another 3.6 million people (7.5%) did not answer the question.'

How is that useful data? We know that one of the correlations was that in areas where english is a second language more people 'said their gender identity was different from their sex'.

Really, they've managed to obscure rather than clarify any of the issues.

Exactly - it's not defined!? Lots of single parents where the other biological parent is not around or grandparent not in contact. Why on earth don't they even have the most basic of things, a link to the actual survey and report by the people who did it?!

Oh - perhaps because even 'Just Like Us's website doesn't have it. It has a blog describing it (very similar to the Graun's 'article'!) and has to describe itself in the third person almost, but absolutely nothing where you can read the survey questions or data. https://www.justlikeus.org/blog/2023/04/19/new-research-shows-almost-half-of-lgbt-adults-are-estranged-from-family-and-a-third-not-confident-their-parents-will-accept-them/

Almost like it's entirely unscientific!

Wouldn’t you need to compare with non-LGBT citizens though to get a full picture as to whether a third of people in general are estranged from their family?
Obviously it wouldn’t be for LGBT reasons but you would also need to look to see if LGBT people were estranged for that reason or some other unrelated reason

It is sad that homophobia and transphobia cause the rejection of young people in so many families. The constant othering of minorities has very real consequences for families in the real world.

Which is probably true but not even slightly demonstrated by this survey

It is sad that homophobia and transphobia cause the rejection of young people in so many families. The constant othering of minorities has very real consequences for families in the real world.

I completely agree. Which is why it's so frustrating we can't see any proper data on it. How would you interpret 'your family'? The Graun even says 'immediate family members' whereas the question in the graphic is just 'family members'.

Telling gay kids they are actually straight and their bodies are wrong clearly has consequences in the family.

It’s just ridiculous. The group who are most likely to be estranged from at least one family member is people who self identify as asexual. This group is the group after ‘questioning’ (so people who self identify as confused) least likely to be confident that their families will accept them ‘coming out’ (as not interested in shagging people).

Maybe some consideration of the correlation between people who aren’t interested in sex and people who don’t talk
to their families might be in order. I suspect any answers to be found from
that exploration aren’t going to fit the ‘oh poor oppressed minorities’ narrative the charity and the guardian are keen to push though.

This statement from the charity is just mind boggling in mangling what evidence they have and claiming causation where there is no evidence to support it (beyond sheer rhetoric).

It’s sadly a common myth that being LGBT+ is easier today, when in fact many LGBT+ young adults remain fearful of their parents not accepting them, with almost half estranged from at least one family member.

This is ideology-based ‘evidence’ mangling and misrepresentation. At no point do they seem to have questioned their assumption that family estrangement is driven wholly or mostly by lack of parental acceptance of their sexuality. They clearly have no interest in considering whether the correlation between T+ identities and poor family relationships may be related to a range of
things we know are over represented in young people presenting with gender identity issues: neurodiversity, history of abuse and trauma, experience of the care system. Nope, it must be because their parents aren’t affirmative enough.

Nor have they considered whether the young people’s perception of how their families will or do respond is accurate. What role does the narrative (so common on social media) that all adults, and particularly your family, are anti-T+ and looking to eradicate people who identify under the TQ+ umbrella play in creating the fear? How does it affect how young people perceive their family and any response they might have?

In fact, what are the ethics of perpetuating this narrative that your family will reject and hate you (so you need to find a nice rainbow family instead) in this way? Is this responsible activism or journalism?

Terrible.

The evidence presented here doesn’t tell us anything about whether families reject anyone on this basis. It simply does not.

So the article could be ‘trans and nonbinary young people are less likely to be estranged from a member of their family than the general population?

Telling kids that their families won’t accept them and that anything shy of enthusiastic affirmation of their self-identity is rejection of them as a person is hugely damaging.

If a young person tells their parents they’re asexual and the response is not to put up a flag outside the house and more of a ‘erm, we’re not really all that interested in your (lack of) sex life and maybe you’ll feel differently in the future’ is that ‘rejection’? Or is it parents knowing that their children are still growing up and may not have the faintest clue how they’ll feel about sex in the future? Is it maybe the kind of ‘oh that’s nice’ response parents give to many things their children tell them and feel passionately about at various points in their lives?

The TQ++ narrative is to frame this as hostility and hatred and to encourage the young person to detach from these awful bigots and find themselves a sparkly rainbow family who ‘accept them for who they are’.

Maybe that narrative is enormously harmful.

Non-binary and trans young people are shown on the graph to be the groups who are least likely to be estranged from all their family. Looks visually to be less than 3% for each group. Whereas gay men are most likely to be estranged from all their family, at about 10%.

Thank you clever people for articulating what I was trying to. Its the idea that this means anything, that you can get a narrative from it, correlation is somehow causation, that irritates me.

They've taken something out of it to make a headline, based on the popular narrative of the day. Perpetuating the idea that everyone hates trans people. We don't. In fact it looks the opposite. If I wanted to take something from this data it would be:

T+ people are more likely to be accepted by their family, while being worried they won't be (why, who knows, but harmful narrative anyone?)

LGB people are more confident they will be accepted, but gay men in particular tend to lose all contact with family (why, is not available in this data... perhaps homophobia is still rife even though the media narrative is hugely positive of homosexuality)

The article didn’t focus on trans, the only sentence they mention specifically mention trans is the one you quoted. The article itself and quotes all refer to “LGBT+” people as a whole.

Was the survey was done on LGBT+ who have or have not come out to their family? The second question clearly is only asking those in the closet but it’s unclear as to the status for the first question on estrangement from family.

It’s hard to peel back what impact the correlation between staying in the closet and not being estranged from your family is having on those survey responses.

Not according to the first graphic in the article.

It’s also sad that the accusation of transphobia, and the assertion that disagreement means hate, results in the rejection of parents by young people in so many families

As the saying goes, "Politicians [and journalists!] use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost - more for support than for illumination".

Such a spot on quote, Biology.

And yes, Transparent, its the opposite of kindness to manipulate vague, fudged data to promote a harmful narrative.

Of course it's sad if any families have rifts or fall-outs, but painting one rigid narrative (which this data does nothing to either support or undermine) when in truth most family situations and dynamics are far more complex, nuanced and messy, is not helpful to anyone.

It's really difficult to interpret any of this. It's just not broken down enough.

For example, my first thought with the stats for gay men was - are men in general more likely to be estranged?

Who knows?

Surveys like this seem to be in the odd position of having both too much and too little information.

That’s because the survey is not intended to produce data that they’ll seek to interpret and understand (and learn something from). They have the answer and they’re surveying to seek ‘evidence’ of what they’ve already decided is the case.

This is all too common.

I noticed when I reset my phone to stop sending me targeted "news" that the default "news" I was then sent by Google was exclusively the Guardian.

It quickly became apparent that the Guardian sells it's subscriptions via this Google hookup and Google is promoting the Guardian as the default news source.

I've shut it off now but before that I had to repeatedly request it stop sending me the Guardian.

The Guardian sells this anxiety clickbait to young people to obtain subscription money in partnership with Google.

Talk to your kids about what Google is sending them.

Buy them a different newspaper subscription.

Google wants kids to be anxious about identity, anxious about everything frankly, and the Guardian provides the bullshit for this.

Are there stats for how many non LGBTQ+ people are estranged from at least one family member, without that it's not possible to see the scale of the issue, if there is one. I'm not LGBTQ+ but am estranged from a few family members, I don't think it's that uncommon 🤷