Myths about Gay Men | Fifteen Eighty Four | Cambridge Universy Prs

Contents:

• 5 MYTHS ABOUT GAY PEOPLE DEBUNKED
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• MYTH BTERS: DEBUNKG COMMON MENTAL HEALTH MYTHS SURROUNDG GAY MEN
• TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT GAY MEN
• 3 MYTHS ABOUT GAY MEN & TRMA
• THE MYTH OF GAY AFFLUENCE

5 MYTHS ABOUT GAY PEOPLE DEBUNKED

"There is nsirable evince that both lbians and gay men want to be strong, mted relatnships [and] are succsful creatg the partnerships, spe difficulti created by social prejudice, stigma, and the lack of legal regnn for same-sex relatnships most parts of the U. S., " said UCLA psychologist Anne Pepl, -thor of a book chapter on the subject published the 2007 Annual Review of example, John Gottman, a Universy of Washgton emer profsor of psychology, and his lleagu llected data om homosexual upl across 12 years, and found that about 20 percent had broken up over that time. That rate projected over a 40-year perd is slightly lower than the divorce rate for first marriag among heterosexual upl over the same time span, acrdg to the study published 2003 the Journal of Homosexualy.

"The overall implitn of this rearch is that we have to shake off all of the stereotyp of homosexual relatnships and have more rpect for them as mted relatnships, " Gottman fact, the same study found that gay upl tend to be better at rolvg nflicts and enuragg posive pedophil are gay(Image cred: © Normasmond |)An pecially pernic myth is that most adults who sexually abe children are gay. A number of rearchers have looked at this qutn to terme if homosexuals are more likely to be pedophil than heterosexuals, and the data dite that's not the example, a 1989 study led by Kurt Frnd of the Clarke Instute of Psychiatry Canada, scientists showed pictur of children to adult gay and straight mal, and measured sexual aroal. (Image cred: © Alanpoulson |)Many of those who oppose gay marriage and gay adoptn charge that same-sex parents aren't good for kids, and that a child needs both a father and a mother to grow up to be a healthy adult.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

Rearch, however, shows that children of gay parents tend to fare jt example, one recent study looked at nearly 90 teens, half livg wh female same-sex upl and the others wh heterosexual upl, showg that both groups fared siarly school. "Both studi were scribed a lerature review paper published Febary 2010 the Journal of Marriage and gay is a choiceThe mystery DNA spippets are about 300 tim ls likely than other regns of the genome to be lost durg the urse of mammalian evolutn.

(Image cred: Dreamstime)While some claim that beg gay is a choice, or that homosexualy n be cured, evince is mountg that same-sex attractn is at least partly geic and blogilly tt whether gen play a role, rearchers have pared intil tws ( which all gen are shared) to aternal tws ( which about 50 percent of gen are shared).

A 2001 review of such tw studi reported that almost all found intil tws were signifintly more likely to share a sexual orientatn – that is, to be eher both gay, or both straight – than aternal tws, who are ls geilly close.

MYTH BTERS: DEBUNKG COMMON MENTAL HEALTH MYTHS SURROUNDG GAY MEN

"The rults support the theory that differenc the central nervo system exist between homosexual and heterosexual dividuals and that the differenc are possibly related to early factors bra velopment, " said Sandra Welson of McMaster Universy Ontar, an thor on the 1998 ner ear fdg published the journal Proceedgs of the Natnal Amy of Scienc. 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.

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.

TOP 5 MYTHS ABOUT GAY MEN

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. Siarly, the Child Welfare League of Ameri's official posn wh regard to same-sex parents is that "lbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well-sued to raise children as their heterosexual unterparts.

A 2013 prelimary study Atralia found that the children of lbian and gay parents are not only thrivg, but may actually have better overall health and higher rat of fay hn than heterosexual fai.

3 MYTHS ABOUT GAY MEN & TRMA

A si effect of this argument is the monizatn of parents of gay men and lbians, who are led to wonr if they failed to protect a child agast sexual abe or failed as role mols some important way. ” 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. 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. Warren Throckmorton, a psychologist at the Christian Grove Cy College, noted an analysis that “the rearch on sexual abe among GLBT populatns is often mised to make ferenc about atn [of homosexualy].

THE MYTH OF GAY AFFLUENCE

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. " Usg obuari llected om newspapers servg the gay muny, he and his two -thors nclud that gay men died, on average, at 43, pared to an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U. 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.

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.

Lively is the vilently anti-gay founr of Abidg Tth Mistri and Abrams is an anizer of a group lled the Internatnal Commtee for Holot Tth, which me together 1994 and clud Lively as a member. Christe Mueller, profsor of history at Reed College, did a 1994 le-by-le refutatn of an earlier Abrams article on the topic and of the broar claim that the Nazi Party was "entirely ntrolled" by gay men. 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.