Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Regina Griggs of PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays) continues to tell whoppers. In this article at OneNewsNow she tells a huge lie:
"Why are we allowing people to tell them, 'Try it -- you might like it?' Over 70 percent of young kids 13- to 24-years-old, men having sex with men, are now HIV-positive," Griggs notes.
Over 70% of 13 to 24 year olds who are men having sex with men (MSM) are HIV-positive? That's absolutely ridiculous, not even in the ballpark. Here's the most recent CDC report, which does in fact note that HIV infections have increased among MSM between 13 and 24. But 70%? Not even close.
The new CDC study found a total of 214,379 people of both genders testing positive for HIV between 2001 and 2006. 46% of them were among MSM, or about 98,000 of them. And of that total, 13,584 of them were between 13 and 24. That's up 12.4% from previous figures, so it's certainly troubling and needs to be addressed. But that sure as hell doesn't constitute 70% of all gay men between 13 and 24, folks. Not even close.
According to the 2000 census figures, there are roughly 50 million people between the age of 13 and 24. Slightly more than half would be female, so let's say conservatively that there are 22 million men between those ages. If 2% of them are MSM, that's 440,000. The percentage of HIV positive MSM between 13 and 24 is more like 3.1%, a far cry from 70%. Okay, it's probably a bit higher than that because there will be some men in that age group who were diagnosed before 2001, but at the absolute outside we're talking 5%, not 70%.
She also makes the ridiculous claim that teenagers can't self-identify as straight or gay. Has she never been a teenager? I knew I was straight the moment I hit puberty and started feeling sexually attracted to girls. Every gay man I know says the exact same thing about feeling sexually attracted to boys at the same time. There wasn't any confusion about it, you just are what you are, no choice involved.
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So... is this and example of one of the 64% of the statistics that are made up on the spot, an example of one of the 87% of statistics taken out of context, or one of the 42.6% of statistics used only to make a point?
(And that's only 193.6% of all the possible statistics!)
[/sarcasm]
Posted by: Umlud | July 30, 2008 10:42 AM
I think it's possible that some young people who are gay/lesbian or bisexual don't realize it, but not because the sexual attraction hasn't happened. The reason I think this may happen fairly often: Suppose you're an adolescent boy living in a sexually puritanical family or community -- and you're attracted more to boys than to girls. At the same time, you're constantaly being told that being gay is both bad and a choice.
You might naturally, though erroneously, assume the following based on your own experience:
* All boys are attracted more to other boys than they are to girls.
* Most boys date and/or have sex with girls.
* Therefore, it's natural to be attracted to boys, but ignore that attraction in favor of girls.
* Gay men are bad or weak people who lack the willpower to have sex with women instead of with other men.
This is the kind of toxic mixed-message stew that could easily produce a Larry Craig or even a Fred Phelps. And it's why I find it believable that some gay and lesbian adults can honestly say things like "I didn't realize I was gay until I was thirty."
Posted by: Julie Stahlhut | July 30, 2008 10:50 AM
I could have self-identified as straight at about 3 if I'd had any idea what it was all about. What I mean is, I already knew there was something I liked about naked females that I just didn't feel for naked males. And that was almost before I could talk. The folks who call it a "choice" have always astounded me. Could I "choose" to be gay? Maybe I could function, but my heart would never be in it... I can't help it; I just adore the female form, and have for as far back as my memory goes. Choice? HA! Ridiculous, indeed.
Posted by: Patrick | July 30, 2008 11:03 AM
I wonder if abstinence-only sex education has something to do with this increase... It's not like gay teenagers wouldn't benefit from a little bit of education about HIV and condoms.
Posted by: Beowulff | July 30, 2008 11:04 AM
I always like to argue with the poeple that say being gay is a choice. I always ask them how old they were when they made their choice. Then I ask them if before they chose that they might have been gay. They usually back pedal at that point and change their origional answer of 10 or 12 or something to much younger. Then I point out they were basically straight from birth (or long before they knew about sex) and it wasnt a choice.
Just for fun if they are really anti-gay I also ask how much research they did before making such an important decision - you test drive several cars before deciding what you like. Pointing out that if it is a choice then they can change their mind at any time about it is good for a few laughs too.
Posted by: mr_p | July 30, 2008 11:43 AM
Time and again Regina Griggs lies for her cause and time and again she gets caught. There was the incident where she fabricated a "Hate Crime" at a county fair. She lied about the APA's stance on the origin and mutability of sexual identity. She falsely claimed to have won a lawsuit giving her the right to distribute religious based anti-gay propaganda in classrooms. You get the idea. Ex-Gay Watch and Truth Wins Out do a good job of keeping tabs on her lies.
Regina, if you should read this, your son is gay. He will always be gay. You didn't make him that way and you didn't do anything wrong raising him. That's just the way it is. Please accept that, accept him, and stop lying to everyone, yourself most of all.
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 30, 2008 11:47 AM
I think part of the increase is that many younger gays don't have any direct contact or memory of those with AIDS dying and therefor there is no sense of urgency around safe sex. Personally I only know one person with HIV (that I know of - he is also very young) but I have experienced 3 friends die of cancer. So it just not something in my worldview.
Abstinence based programs don't help either.
Posted by: yoshi | July 30, 2008 11:48 AM
Sorry I borked the HTML code. The Truth Wins Out link should have taken you to: http://www.truthwinsout.org
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 30, 2008 11:50 AM
Abby Normal said:
But I like to think that if you are a person who believes in original sin (read: wacko-looney religionist dogmatics) then genetic heritability is merely the scientific analogue of a core tenet of your belief structure. Therefore, if one inherits sin from Adam and Eve (like some weird mystical-hoo-hah genetic anomaly that no other species has; a biblical ERV?) then homosexuality is the fault of the parents.
Of course, if you subscribe to the POV, then you are doing yourself (and your offspring) a major disservice to say the least.
Posted by: Umlud | July 30, 2008 12:16 PM
I don't know if you saw this, Ed, but Good As You has picked up this commentary.
http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2008/07/but-hey-its-onl.html
Posted by: Donna | July 30, 2008 12:37 PM
"She also makes the ridiculous claim that teenagers can't self-identify as straight or gay. Has she never been a teenager?"
Yes, that's an absurd claim. Picking up on Julie's observations, it seems that the anti-gay spokespersons often make these sorts of claims. I'd assume the claim is based entirely on their own experience. Deeply conflicted gays and lesbians, defensively insist they are straight and they assume that everyone else is as deeply conflicted and confused as they are. To admit otherwise is to admit that they are homosexuals.
Posted by: Dr X | July 30, 2008 12:44 PM
To continue this part of the theme, I had a former boss, gay, who told me he knew when he was 5. We never got into how he knew, but I believe him. He was verrry gay, so it wouldn't surprise if he knew that early.
Posted by: chris | July 30, 2008 3:12 PM
Heh. When my cousin came out as a teenager the only surprise to my family was that it shocked his mother. The rest of us thought he was probably gay before he started preschool.
Posted by: SeanH | July 30, 2008 3:56 PM
Found a statistic that suggests why the specific silly number 70% was used: 70% of new cases are among young people.
Apparently, Mrs. Griggs can't tell the difference between "70% of new HIV cases are young people" and "70% of young people are HIV cases".
Understandable perfectly this is, word order English in matters not. Irrelevancies mathematical unimportant are discussing when statistics, not are they?
The original statistic:
(Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25917105/ )Posted by: Matthew L. | July 30, 2008 5:16 PM
Funny thing, I had the exact opposite feeling at about age 5 - I knew seeing guys naked did something for me that naked girls never did. I think I only played doctor with a neighbor girl once and lost interest. Then when I encountered the Junior High locker room at age 12 I knew it had something to do with sex, and at age 14 I had a word to put to the feeling.
Posted by: Don K | July 30, 2008 8:40 PM
How dare you criticize Mrs Griggs' god-given statistics! It's clearly written in the third chapter, second verse of the Book of the Crap I Just Made Up.
I knew that I was gay when puberty hit when I was 11. All I could think about was dick. But, looking back, I remember dividing people into three categories, cute males, not-cute males, and females. It was more of an observation than a discrimination.
Posted by: wrpd | July 30, 2008 8:53 PM
Matthew: Good catch. Reversal of conditional probabilities is a pet peeve of mine, and it's frequently used by homophobes. I have actually seen people, when confronted with issues of HIV prevalence among gay men, argue that there is no difference between the two concepts. When I point out that that is exactly the same as arguing that two fractions are automatically equal if they have the same numerators, a frequent response is to demand a citation from the peer-reviewed literature (which makes it pretty obvious that they don't really know what that phrase means, but just parrot it because we demand such citations when they make assertions that deal with genuine research topics). It seems to all boil down to whether or not you believe in fourth-grade arithmetic.
I should point out, though, that lots of people get conditional probabilities wrong in all sorts of contexts. It's not conceptually hard to grasp, but it does require a little bit of thought, and the realization that it's actually important.
Posted by: ebohlman | July 31, 2008 3:12 PM
It's actually an even bigger distortion than that. While the MSNBC article could suggest the interpretation of "70% of new HIV cases involve young people", that's not actually what Phill Wilson is claiming.
Phill Wilson is CEO of the Black Aids Institute, and this news article makes what the Institute is claiming much clearer:
"According to the Los Angeles, Calif.-based Black AIDS Institute, nearly 50 percent of the 1.2 million HIV-positive U.S. residents are African-American, 67 percent of the new cases among women and 70 percent of the new diagnoses among youth involve Blacks."
Got that? The MSNBC quote was thus actually intended to be interpreted as "We [black people] are 30 percent of the new cases among gay men, 40 percent of the new cases among men in general, 60 percent of the cases among women and 70 percent of the new cases among youth".
Posted by: Neil H | July 31, 2008 9:00 PM
Ooh, wait, I see onenewsnow.com have changed the text:
"Over 70 percent of young kids 13- to 24-years-old, men having sex with men, are now HIV-positive," Griggs notes. (see editor's note)".
The editor's note says "In June of 2007 the Centers for Disease Control stated that homosexual sex accounted for 71 percent of all HIV infections." Why do I doubt that this was the statistic that Regina Griggs originally had in mind? Because it makes zero mention of 13-24 year olds, perhaps?
Posted by: Neil H | July 31, 2008 9:11 PM
PFOX never made any sense to me (and not just because the acronymn doesn't stand for the name). I mean if you're gay and in this organisation wouldn't you just become an ex-gay through it's magical conversion methods. And if you're an "ex-gay" then why the hell are you still in PFOX? Go get some pussies like "real men". Fucked up message.
I knew I liked men from the time I was 7 though I thought I just wanted to look like them cause I was kind of chubby back then. But when I was 13 (and thankfully allot thinner) I watched "The Matthew Shepard Story" and it just clicked. I was gay, I was in a psychopath world of haters and Shane Meier was hot. And thats my story.
Posted by: Jaden | December 28, 2008 11:01 AM