When I realized I was gay, all of that hatred that I showed to others turned on myself. I hate gay people, I am gay — th, I need to not be gay.
Contents:
GAY RIGHTS
The gay rights movement the Uned Stat began the 1920s and saw huge progrs the 2000s, wh laws prohibg homosexual activy stck down and a Supreme Court lg legalizg same-sex marriage. * gay struggle *
Sendly, ele learship enuraged members of their -groups to be more acceptg of gay and lbian Amerins, providg the example need to change attus.
Although there are exampl of socially accepted homosexualy distant history, for most of morn history, gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenr people faced tense prejudice. They found that “heterosexuals who had experienced terpersonal ntact wh gay men or lbians exprsed signifintly more favorable general attus toward gay people than did heterosexuals whout ntact. Their rearch validated the strategy proposed by lears like the late Harvey Milk, an openly gay San Francis polician who urged gays and lbians to “e out” to their parents, neighbors, iends, and workers.
SELF-HATRED AND THE STGGL OF BEG GAY
In subsequent s, more and more heterosexual people me to disver how many of their loved and rpected iends, fay, and lleagu were gay or lbian. “We pos that this is bee the Inter facilat workg and people-to-people munitn, which turn n brg about shifts societal views as people learn that people who are close to them may be gay, ” says Jenifer Whten Woodrg, a polil scientist at the Universy of Massachetts, Lowell, who helped nduct the study. Several studi by Universy of Mnota amic Edward Schiappa found that the prence of gay characters major televisn programmg was associated wh ls prejudice among viewers.
One of the shows that Schiappa studied was Will & Grace, which is often creded alongsi Ellen as programmg that normalized the prence of gay and lbian characters televisn.
In their book, Listen, We Need to Talk: How to Change Attus about LGBT Rights, rearchers Brian Harrison and Melissa Michelson offered their own mol for how public acceptance towards homosexualy has advanced so quickly—one that emphasiz -group learship om people like Portman. In an experiment they performed wh a gay rights anizatn lled One Iowa, some phone-bankg volunteers intified themselv on the le as gay, lbian, bisexual, or transgenr, and some did not.
HOW TO ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GAY
They found that “relig participants exposed to the quotatn attributed to Reverend Lawrence were more likely to say that they supported marriage equaly, more likely to say that they would likely vote for a ballot measure their state tablishg marriage equaly, and more likely to approve of gay and lbian parentg. It’s difficult, even for the rearchers, to say for sure if grassroots g out drove ele nversn to the e of gay rights—or if aly went the other directn. What is clear is that a batn of greater exposure and ntact wh gay and lbian Amerins, alongsi social cu by -group lears, were associated wh a large crease bias among Amerins.
“The succsful e of ‘g out’ wh the gay rights movement was precisely why undocumented immigrant youth activists elected to borrow the term for their purpos, ” says Enriquez, a soclogist at the Universy of California, Irve. As Tsa Charlworth not about her study, attus toward the disabled haven’t seen much change—but there is a movement toward adoptg gay-rights tactics disabily rights. The Early Gay Rights Movement In 1924, Henry Gerber, a German immigrant, found Chigo the Society for Human Rights, the first documented gay rights anizatn the Uned Stat.