Nate Silver: My friends describe me as ‘sexually gay but ethnically straight’
US statistician, Nate Silver, said his friends would describe him as “kind of sexually gay but ethnically straight”, in a recent interview.
The statistician and writer, 34, who came out to his parents after spending a year in London studying economics, said in an interview with Out Magazine, which named him Person of the Year 2012:
“For me, I think the most important distinguishing characteristic is that I’m independent-minded,” Silver, 34, tells the magazine. “I’m sure that being gay encouraged the independent-mindedness, but that same independent-mindedness makes me a little bit skeptical of parts of gay culture, I suppose.”
Talking about a series of flagpoles in Chicago, erected as memorials to gay Americans, he said:
“There was one little plaque for Keith Haring, and it was, like, ‘Keith Haring, gay American artist, 1962 to 1981,’ or whatever [actually 1958 to 1990], and I was like, Why isn’t he just an American artist? I don’t want to be Nate Silver, gay statistician, any more than I want to be known as a white, half-Jewish statistician who lives in New York.”
The interview goes on to say that Mr Silver “supports marriage equality, but worries that growing acceptance of gays will dent our capacity to question broader injustice.”
On coming out as gay in London, as a student, he said, “I don’t know how I got any work done”.
