The best available Canadian statistics are from the 2003 British Columbia Adolescent Health Survey ( 3), a cluster-stratified, weighted survey that represented 289,767 students from British Columbia who were enrolled in public schools. Having had sex with someone of the same gender does not always mean the teen is gay, and many gay teens have never had sex with someone of the same gender. Teens who will eventually identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual do not always do so during adolescence. Studies that try to define the percentage of teens who are not heterosexual are often limited by the questions that they ask. Those who are attracted primarily to the opposite sex are heterosexual, those attracted primarily to the same sex are homosexual (gay or lesbian) and those who are attracted to both sexes are bisexual. Sexual and affectational preferences are not always congruent. One does not have to be sexually active to have a sexual orientation. Sexual orientation refers to whether a person’s physical and emotional arousal is to people of the same or opposite sex.
