10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• WHAT GAY STEREOTYPE ARE YOU?
• WHICH GAY STEREOTYPE ARE YOU?
• WHAT TYPE OF GAY ARE YOU?
• THE OFFICIAL GAY STEREOTYPE QUIZ
• HOW STEREOTYPILLY GAY ARE YOU?
• 15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN
• GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
• THIS QUIZ CLAIMS TO BE ABLE TO TELL WHICH GAY STEREOTYPE YOU ARE
• WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS WHO DO F THE 'GAY STEREOTYPE'?
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• CHARL BARKLEY FENDS LGBTQIA+ MUNY, BUD LIGHT EXPLETIVE-FILLED RANT: ‘IF YOU’RE GAY, GOD BLS YOU’

WHAT GAY STEREOTYPE ARE YOU?

My Chemil Romance - Wele to the Black Para Melanie Martez - Fire Drill Shirts wh "love is love" or some other rny-but-has-a-good-msage-shirt Ready to stroy homophob/transphob Ready to take on a bch"If you ever see me fightg wh a grizzly bear, help the bear!

I love me and don't re about gays Or I don't like myself and I don't know about gays I love me and hate those people I love me and gay people are A-ok too or Y, all my gay pri I love myself and I thk gays are ok but I don't really know them all that well Is ok to take off transgenr peopl rights to pass laws for gay peopl rights?

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. Dpe the persistence of stereotyp that portray lbian, gay, and bisexual people as disturbed, several s of rearch and clil experience have led all mastream medil and mental health anizatns this untry to nclu that the orientatns reprent normal forms of human experience.

WHICH GAY STEREOTYPE ARE YOU?

Helpful rpons of a therapist treatg an dividual who is troubled about her or his same sex attractns clu helpg that person actively pe wh social prejudic agast homosexualy, succsfully rolve issu associated wh and rultg om ternal nflicts, and actively lead a happy and satisfyg life.

WHAT TYPE OF GAY ARE YOU?

The phrase “g out” is ed to refer to several aspects of lbian, gay, and bisexual persons’ experienc: self-awarens of same-sex attractns; the tellg of one or a few people about the attractns; wispread disclosure of same-sex attractns; and intifitn wh the lbian, gay, and bisexual muny. Lbian, gay, and bisexual youth who do well spe strs—like all adolcents who do well spe strs—tend to be those who are socially petent, who have good problem-solvg skills, who have a sense of tonomy and purpose, and who look forward to the future. If they are a heterosexual relatnship, their experienc may be que siar to those of people who intify as heterosexual unls they choose to e out as bisexual; that se, they will likely face some of the same prejudice and discrimatn that lbian and gay dividuals enunter.

The word may be ed as a noun, to refer to women who intify themselv or who are characterized by others as havg the primary attribute of female homosexualy, or as an adjective, to scribe characteristics of an object or activy related to female same-sex sire. Homosexual men are often equated terchangeably wh heterosexual women by the heterocentric mastream, and are equently stereotyped as beg effemate, spe the fact that genr exprsn, genr inty and sexual orientatn are wily accepted to be distct om each other. A stereotype based on the visibily (wh popular and nsumer culture) of a reciprol relatnship between gay men and fashn; gay men who are visible popular culture may purchase fashn as a means of exprsn; and gay men have high visibily wh the dtry creatg fashns.

THE OFFICIAL GAY STEREOTYPE QUIZ

The dis era startg the 1970s hered by unrground gay clubs and disc jockeys kept the ‘partyg’ aspect vibrant and hered the more hardre circu party movement that was hedonistic and associated wh party and play (PNP or PnP), or simply ‘partyg’. There have been 29 reported this year, up om 14 the same perd last year, even as hate crim overall have cled durg that time by almost 30 recent uptick anti-gay vlence also durg the same month that three more stat passed laws legalizg same-sex marriage and jt weeks after NBA veteran Jason Colls revealed that he is gay—and was largely greeted wh open arms by the sports world. And sce for women, we thk gayns "has somethg to do wh" masculy, we hold the opposg set of assumptns about female athlet: "In sports right now, there are two different stereotyp—that there are no gay male athlet, and every female athlete is a lbian, " Patrick Burke of the gay sports advocy group You Can Play explaed to the New York Tim.

"Homophobia, then, is not simply social disapproval and discrimatn agast gay people, but an entire cultural stcture that disqualifyg all but the "most vilent repudiators of femy" om "real manhood"— the procs upholdg genr equaly and matag a hierarchy of men based on sexualy, race, class, abily, and so 's entirely unrstandable, then, why Colls took pas to highlight his masculy his Sports Illtrated article announcg the news. Ever sce we've been askg about public opn polls, men have been more likely than women to poe anti-gay views—a fact that buttrsed the theory that masculy is timately nnected wh homophobia, says Tristan Bridg, assistant profsor of soclogy at The College at Brockport, SUNY.

HOW STEREOTYPILLY GAY ARE YOU?

Though homophobia is by no means eradited—after all, Bridg pots out, straight men pecially still seem be far more fortable wh gay inty than actual gay sex—the largely supportive rponse to Colls and Rogers g out would seem to reflect a real and rapid change anti-gay attus, which should certaly be 's far ls clear is whether this shift is actually changg the way homophobia is ed as a weapon for matag tradnal masculy.

And don't get much better for adults: Nety percent of the trans and genr non-nformg people surveyed by the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force and the Natnal Center for Transgenr Equaly reported experiencg harassment, mistreatment, or discrimatn on the job, or hid their inti to avoid . And though steppg too far outsi of acceptable genr norms is seen as a problem for everyone, to a gree, women may even be reward for distancg themselv om femy at is not to say that clg homophobia don't have the potential to lead to a ser reimagg of masculy more broadly. " But if they still shout "cunt" and "psy" as they physilly abe their athlet, that will be superficial progrs fact, if the associatn between gayns and femy is broken whout more fundamentally expandg masculy, may even make thgs worse.

15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN

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. 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.

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. 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.

GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?

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.

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. 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.

THIS QUIZ CLAIMS TO BE ABLE TO TELL WHICH GAY STEREOTYPE YOU ARE

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.

WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS WHO DO F THE 'GAY STEREOTYPE'?

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. 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.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

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. The stereotype ntent for sexual mory groups has been found to be partly verted pared to the ntent of stereotyp about the general genr groups women and men, such that the stereotype ntent for lbian women is more siar to that of men general, while the stereotype ntent for gay men is more siar to that of women general1 (see for stance, Blashill and Powlishta, 2009).

Rearch on beliefs regardg genr versn of characteristics associated wh sexual mori have found that homosexual women and men are seen as more siar to other-genr heterosexual groups than to their rpective same genr group (Ke and Dex, 1987; Blashill and Powlishta, 2009), and that heterosexual groups are seen are more genr typil than homosexual or bisexual groups (Ghavami and Pepl, 2018). In fact, homosexual women and men n be rated as equally mascule and feme (Clarke and Arnold, 2017) wh parable gre of siari to both same and other genr groups (Ghavami and Pepl, 2018): suggtg an androgyny rather than genr versn view of sexual mori.

Studi of stereotype ntent for sexual mory groups nducted different cultur show different gre of agency and munn clud cultural stereotyp regardg homosexual women and men, rangg om high on both dimensns (homosexual men Norway; Bye et al., 2014) to low on both dimensns (homosexual men Mexi; Durante et al., 2013). Fdgs om Atralia (Durante et al., 2013), Germany (Eck, 2002; Asbrock, 2010), Italy (Brambilla et al., 2011), and the Uned Stat (Fiske et al., 2002) show eher medium levels of agency and munn clud the stereotyp about homosexual women and men, or partial genr versn of stereotype ntent.

CHARL BARKLEY FENDS LGBTQIA+ MUNY, BUD LIGHT EXPLETIVE-FILLED RANT: ‘IF YOU’RE GAY, GOD BLS YOU’

Comparisons between homosexual and bisexual women and men dite eher that bisexual groups form a clter relatively low on both munn and agency (Mize and Manago, 2018), or that ratgs of munn follow a genred (but verted) pattern, while ratgs of agency is lower for bisexual men than for remag groups (Vghn et al., 2017).