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The University of Liverpool has seemingly done away with the labels gay, lesbian and bisexual and replaced it with “sexual minorities” while still referring to straight people as heterosexuals.

In a press release, which was trying to convey that young people born between 1995 and 2015 who identify as a “sexual minority” i.e gay, lesbian, bisexual and pansexual are more likely to experience mental health problems.

“sexual” minorities makes us look as though we are just sexual beings”

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Throughout the press release, the University, which worked alongside University College London, repeatedly called LGB people “sexual minorities” however when it came to writing about their heterosexual counterparts, it used the word heterosexuality.

THEGAYUK conducted a flash poll to see what it’s readers thought of the term “sexual minority”

The clear indication from our flash poll was that the majority of those who identify as LGB did not think that the term was right. Over 80 per cent of those who took part said they disagreed with the term and were happy to keep identities labelled as Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual.

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One commenter wrote, “‘sexual’ minorities makes us look as though we are just sexual beings, a different sexuality to heterosexuality is a part of who we are not just the sex we may or may not have”

Another added, “totally agree! Sex is one aspect of a human being! I am married to a man, that is not a sexual thing! I am lucky that also part of the luck I have had”

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“Attraction not Identity”

According to researchers, it’s about attraction, not identity, a spokesperson for the research said,

“We use sexual minority as an umbrella term to incorporate those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual. We use this term as we only had data about sexual attraction (from the secondary data source used i.e. the millennium cohort study) and not identity which would be more closely reflected by ‘LGB’.

“Our sample were not asked about their identity but only their attraction i.e. have you been attracted to a boy/girl. Furthermore, due to the fact they are likely still navigating their identity at this age i.e. 14 years old (savin-williams, 2011) we did not want to ascribe labels that may change in future and as such sexual minority was a more age appropriate term.”

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