10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• 15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN
• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• STEREOTYP, EMOTNS, AND BEHAVRS TOWARD LBIANS, GAY MEN, BISEXUAL WOMEN, AND BISEXUAL MEN
• GAY STEREOTYP AND THE PRSUR THAT LGBTQ+ PEOPLE N FEEL TO EHER ACCEPT OR REBEL
• PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS
• THE GAY MEN RISKG THEIR HEALTH FOR THE PERFECT BODY
• REPORTED EFFECTS OF MASCULE IALS ON GAY MEN
• GAY STEREOTYP CAN RU MEN’S LIV, IT'S TIME TO EMBRACE ALL EXPRSNS OF INTY
• GAYSPLOATN UPENDS THE STEREOTYP THAT MAKE US WCE
• THE STEREOTYP ABOUT GAYS AND STRAIGHTS ARE TE

15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN

Stereotyp about gay men are stctive to both how society views , as well as to how we view society mak fun of and gras gay men for thgs that are patently unte, young gay men are left whout proper role mols, failed by a society that scrib them wh generalizatns.

Stereotyp may be ground the tth or be plete and utter falsehoods, but they are dangero regardls of where they e opprsn and reprsn of gay men throughout history — om ancient tim and early Christiany to the morn AIDS crisis — has been rooted fear and falsi. Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society. But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia.

The fairy tal are important to the anti-gay right bee they form the basis of s claim that homosexualy is a social evil that mt be supprsed — an opn rejected by virtually all relevant medil and scientific thori. Depictg gay men as a threat to children may be the sgle most potent weapon for stokg public fears about homosexualy — and for wng electns and referenda, as Ana Bryant found out durg her succsful 1977 mpaign to overturn a Da County, Fla., ordance barrg discrimatn agast gay people. Others have ced a group lled the Amerin College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) to claim, as Tony Perks of the Fay Rearch Council did November 2010, that "the rearch is overwhelmg that homosexualy pos a [moltatn] danger to children.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

Gregory Herek, a profsor at the Universy of California, Davis, who is one of the natn's leadg rearchers on prejudice agast sexual mori, reviewed a seri of studi and found no evince that gay men molt children at higher rat than heterosexual men.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

The Amerin Amy of Child & Adolcent Psychiatry affirmed 2013 that “[c]urrent rearch shows that children wh gay and lbian parents do not differ om children wh heterosexual parents their emotnal velopment or their relatnships wh peers and adults” and they are “not more likely than children of heterosexual parents to velop emotnal or behavral problems. The Amerin Amy of Pediatrics (AAP) a 2002 policy statement clared: "A growg body of scientific lerature monstrat that children who grow up wh one or two gay and/or lbian parents fare as well emotnal, gnive, social, and sexual functng as do children whose parents are heterosexual.

” Schumm, who has also argued that lbian relatnships are unstable, has ti to discreded psychologist and anti-LGBT fabulist Pl Cameron, the thor of numero pletely basels “studi” about the alleged evils of homosexualy. The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn noted a 2000 fact sheet available on the Associatn of Gay and Lbian Psychiatrists, that alg wh gay, lbian and bisexual issu, that sexual abe do not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and intify as gay, lbian or bisexual than children who grow up and intify as heterosexual.

STEREOTYP, EMOTNS, AND BEHAVRS TOWARD LBIANS, GAY MEN, BISEXUAL WOMEN, AND BISEXUAL MEN

Siarly, the Natnal Organizatn on Male Sexual Victimizatn not on s webse that "experts the human sexualy field do not believe that premature sexual experienc play a signifint role late adolcent or adult sexual orientatn" and add that 's unlikely that anyone n make another person gay or heterosexual. Anti-LGBT anizatns, seekg to promote heterosexualy as the healthier "choice, " often offer up the purportedly shorter life spans and poorer physil and mental health of gays and lbians as reasons why they shouldn't be allowed to adopt or foster children. On the basis of the same obuari, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18 tim more likely to die r accints than heterosexuals, 22 tim more likely to die of heart attacks than wh, and 11 tim more likely than blacks to die of the same e.

GAY STEREOTYP AND THE PRSUR THAT LGBTQ+ PEOPLE N FEEL TO EHER ACCEPT OR REBEL

Anti-LGBT anizatns have also tried to support this claim by distortg the work of legimate scholars, like a 1997 study nducted by a Canadian team of rearchers that alt wh gay and bisexual men livg Vanuver the late 1980s and early 1990s. Anti-gay activists, who have long opposed addg LGBT people to those protected by hate crime legislatn, have repeatedly claimed that such laws would lead to the jailg of relig figur who preach agast homosexualy — part of a bid to ga the backg of the broar relig muny for their posn. Anti-gay groups have been adamantly opposed to allowg gay men and lbians to serve openly the armed forc, not only bee of their purported fear that bat reads will be unrmed, but bee the ary has long been nsired the purt merocracy Ameri (the armed forc were succsfully racially tegrated long before Amerin civil society, for example).

At the same time, gays and lbians have served openly for years the armed forc of 25 untri (as of 2010), cludg Bra, Israel, South Ai, Canada and Atralia, acrdg to a report released by the Palm Center, a policy thk tank at the Universy of California at Santa Barbara.

Dpe the fact that gay men and lbians have been servg openly the ary sce September 2011, anti-LGBT groups ntue to claim that openly gay personnel are g problems the ary, cludg claims of sexual abe by gay and lbian soldiers of straight soldiers. Though is te that LGBT people tend to suffer higher rat of anxiety, prsn, and prsn-related illns and behavrs like alhol and dg abe than the general populatn, that is due to the historil social stigmatizatn of homosexualy and vlence directed at LGBT people, not bee of homosexualy self. A report prented by the Council on Scientific Affairs to the AMA Hoe of Delegat Interim Meetg wh regard to reparative (“ex-gay”) therapy noted that most of the emotnal disturbance gay men and lbians experience around their sexual inty is not based on physlogil , but rather on “a sense of alienatn an unacceptg environment.

PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

Mark Hatzenbuehler, a socmedil scienc profsor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia Universy, said that the data gathered the study suggts that “sexual mori livg muni wh high levels of anti-gay prejudice have creased risk of mortaly, pared to low-prejudice muni.

THE GAY MEN RISKG THEIR HEALTH FOR THE PERFECT BODY

Qazi Rahman, study -thor and a leadg scientist on human sexual orientatn, said: "This study puts ld water on any ncerns that we are lookg for a sgle 'gay gene' or a sgle environmental variable which uld be ed to 'select out' homosexualy — the factors which fluence sexual orientatn are plex.

The Amerin Amy of Pediatrics stated 1993 (updated 2004) that “homosexualy has existed most societi for as long as rerd scriptns of sexual beliefs and practic have been available” and that even at that time, “most scholars the field state that one’s sexual orientatn is not a choice … dividuals do not choose to be homosexual or heterosexual. A number of "ex-gay" relig mistri have spng up recent years wh the aim of teachg gay people to bee heterosexuals, and the have bee prime purveyors of the claim that gays and lbians, wh the aid of mental therapy and Christian teachgs, n "e out of homosexualy.

REPORTED EFFECTS OF MASCULE IALS ON GAY MEN

"Reparative" or sexual reorientatn therapy — the psdo-scientific foundatn of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the tablished and reputable Amerin medil, psychologil, psychiatric and profsnal unselg anizatns.

The Amerin Medil Associatn officially oppos reparative therapy that is “based on the assumptn that homosexualy per se is a mental disorr or based on an a prri assumptn that the person should change his/her homosexual orientatn. When the Met Gala rolled out s annual red-rpet fashn show New York last month, the theme was “mp” – that elive qualy of exaggeratn or theatrily that has, sce Osr Wil’s day if not before, been associated wh homosexualy.

GAY STEREOTYP CAN RU MEN’S LIV, IT'S TIME TO EMBRACE ALL EXPRSNS OF INTY

Arguments raged among stylists and the gay muny over whether the Kardashians were drsed full mp regalia (note: Kris Jenner was mp already), along wh Jared Leto and Harry n, of urse, be found almost anywhere – om old black-and-whe mils to Eurovisn – but this event was an unprecented celebratn of mp the mastream. Democratic printial ndidate and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks at Capal Cy Pri Ft D Mo, Iowa (Photo: Stt Olson/Getty Imag)There aga, some gay people still actively choose to panr to stereotyp.

“It’s absolutely shockg I end up beg gay, ” he said wryly, rercg the ia that some tast are perceived to be typilly MP Chris Bryant (Photo: Oli Srff/Getty Imag)When I was rearchg my book Queer Intentns, which explor how far LGBTQ+ acceptance really extends, I met gay men om the Middle East who wanted to exprs a more mp si of their character but uldn’t out of fear for their safety, alongsi gay men om the US who felt “trapped” by the ia that they might need to be flamboyant orr to somehow f as gay. He explas that, growg up gay London the 80s, he reacted to threats by eher beg mp, flamboyant and funny – “playg up to a gay cliché so that people would lgh at me stead of hurtg me” – or else he “beme far ‘ls gay’” so that people would not hurt him.

There are untls labels to scribe one’s genr or sexualy (Facebook has 76 genr optns) and gay culture is largely embraced by the mastream – jt look at the astronomil populary of the TV show RuPl’s Drag and fellow producers at the Crics’ Choice Real TV Awards Beverly Hills (Photo: Alberto E. We are gradually movg beyond the one-dimensnal reprentatns that he, part, blam for perpetuatg the stereotype: the “sissy” characters popular early Hollywood films, and the 70s and 80s films where gay men were eher viants or killers or else victims of vlence. GLAAD revealed at a panel Augt that 62 gay and bisexual televisn characters were killed off on televisn the past two years, cludg on Orange Is the New Black, Hoe of Cards, Pretty Ltle Liars, The Walkg Dead, and Empire.

GAYSPLOATN UPENDS THE STEREOTYP THAT MAKE US WCE

From Aled Hchck's oedipal Bno Strangers on a Tra to his Leopold and Loeb stand-s Rope to the serial killer offg gay men the servedly much-maligned Cisg to the recent French film Stranger by the Lake, the praved homosexual has been a mastay of the big screen. Keywords: Bears, Gay Culture, Gay and Bisexual Men, Self-teem, Masculy, ObyINTRODUCTIONThe gay muny is ultimately a heterogeneo one wh many subgroups and subcultur—one of the monali among them beg the sire to have same-sex enunters. Bee there is a arth of general rearch regardg this muny, and no studi to date that e quantative methods, we cid to explore this muny quantatively—g an Inter-nvenience sample, followed by a purposive suggted, the Bear culture exhibs and valu a greater sense of domant (but not necsarily domeerg) “thentic masculy” parison to other subcultur wh the gay muny (e.

In rponse and ntrast wh Leathermen, Bears mata their mascule inty whout adoptg negative hypermascule tennci to acmodate all partners, spe their size or body is some theoretil support for why the Bear inty spltered om the gay male mastream culture. Popular culture, the media, and Wtern hetero- and homosexual expectatns have normalized the ial male body as one that is lean, mcular, and v-shaped (wh broad shoulrs, a narrow waist, and a flat but well-fed stomach) (Olivardia, Pope, Borowiecki, & Cohane, 2000). G., poor self-image/self-teem) velop both heterosexual and homosexual men exhibg ls sirable physil tras (Beren, Hayn, Wilfley, & Grilo, 1996; Morrison, Morrison, & Sager, 2004; Pepl et al., 2009; Weer, 2009; Yelland & Tiggemann, 2003).

Whereas mastream gay men often do not engage sired or preferred sexual behavrs bee of fears of rejectn or judgment (Kamski, Chapman, Hayn, & Own, 2004), those the more acceptg Bear muny reject the fears due to their beg ultimately “feme” nature (Hennen, 2005). G., uratn, fistg, voyrism, exhibnism) (Grov, Parsons, & Bimbi, 2010) to the active existence of the Bear muny and regnn of this subculture by the larger gay/bisexual male culture, more rearch is need to explore the gree to which the prevly mentned physil, behavral, and psychologil differenc actually exist. Consirg the likely prevalence of a Bear inty may be held (wh varyg tenaci) by about 14–22% of gay men, the rults provi addnal evince for the manift and latent heterogeney of gay and bisexual rults regardg body tras and partner selectn nfirm, for the first time a systematic manner, fdgs documented prev terview and ethnographic studi.

THE STEREOTYP ABOUT GAYS AND STRAIGHTS ARE TE

Regardls of the potential explanatn, Bears appear to be more sexually diverse and explorative than mastream gay and bisexual rults documented lower self-teem, which ntradicted both our hypothis and others’ terview rearch (e.