Why straight women and gay men are often so close

Contents:

• HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR?
• WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN ARE OFTEN SO CLOSE
• STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS
• WHY ARE THERE GAY WOMEN?
• LBIANS MORE ACCEPTED THAN GAY MEN AROUND THE WORLD, STUDY FDS
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
• GAY MEN HAVG SEX WH WOMEN?
• LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR HEALTH
• UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR?

While the surveys show a fairly wi variatn the overall percentage of adults who intify as LGB, the proportn who intify as lbian/gay vers bisexual is somewhat more nsistent (see Figure 2).

The Natnal Survey of Sexual Health and Behavr and the Atralian Longudal Study of Health and Relatnships both found a majory of rponnts (55% and 59%, rpectively) intifyg as surveys show even greater nsistency differenc between men and women associated wh lbian/gay vers bisexual inty.

The associatn of HIV/AIDS wh gay and bisexual men and the accurate belief that some people held that all gay and bisexual men were fected served to further stigmatize lbian, gay, and bisexual people.

WHY STRAIGHT WOMEN AND GAY MEN ARE OFTEN SO CLOSE

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. 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. 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.

Th, is not surprisg that lbians and gay men who feel they mt nceal their sexual orientatn report more equent mental health ncerns than do lbians and gay men who are more open; they may even have more physil health problems. 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.

STRAIGHT WOMEN AND THEIR GAY HBANDS

The picture that emerg om this rearch shows that children of gay and lbian parents enjoy a social life that is typil of their age group terms of volvement wh peers, parents, fay members, and iends. In summary, social science has shown that the ncerns often raised about children of lbian and gay parents, ncerns that are generally ground prejudice agast and stereotyp about gay people, are unfound. When lbians, gay men, and bisexual people feel ee to make public their sexual orientatn, heterosexuals are given an opportuny to have personal ntact wh openly gay people and to perceive them as dividuals.

Antigay attus are far ls mon among members of the populatn who have a close iend or fay member who is lbian or gay, pecially if the gay person has directly e out to the heterosexual person. “I was terted the evolutnary perspective as to why gay men and straight women form close iendships, ” says Eric Rsell, a visg psychology rearcher at the Universy of Texas At and lead thor of the study, published the latt issue of Evolutnary Psychology.

Rsell wonred if had somethg to do wh the exchange of matg advice sce gay men and straight women aren’t romantic partners or matg petn and were “uniquely posned to exchange tstworthy rmatn. ”To tt his hypothis, Rsell enlisted the help of 88 straight women and 58 gay men, all unrgrads om the Texas ChristianUniversy, and nducted two one, straight women were prented wh a scenar volvg a party, a iend who bags out at the last mute and a substute “date” named Jordan.

WHY ARE THERE GAY WOMEN?

In the send study, gay men were prented wh the exact same scenar except the Facebook profile picted Jordan as eher a straight woman, a gay woman or a gay qutns – signed to terme the level of tst tt subjects had for each genr/sexual preference – were ccial to the person’s “game. There’s even a seri of YouTube vios om the edy group Send Cy showg how a number of famo straight women om lerature – thk Juliet, Lady MacBeth and Charl Dickens’ Miss Havisham – uld have benefed om a “sassy gay iend.

LBIANS MORE ACCEPTED THAN GAY MEN AROUND THE WORLD, STUDY FDS

Lare was the maid of honor at Fick' weddg, and Fick was Lare's“In general, if you were askg whether I’d tst a straight woman or a gay man an unknown suatn, I’d probably end up tstg the straight woman rather than the gay guy, ” he says. ”Christyne Blount, a 38-year-old fancial analyst om Seattle, says she fely would tst a gay man more than that of a straight man when me to datg advice but feels her straight women iends are every b as reliable. The term “homosexualy, ” while sometim nsired anachronistic the current era, is the most applible and easily translatable term to e when askg this qutn across societi and languag and has been ed other cross-natnal studi, cludg the World Valu Survey.

Dpe major chang laws and norms surroundg the issue of same-sex marriage and the rights of LGBT people around the world, public opn on the acceptance of homosexualy society remas sharply divid by untry, regn and enomic velopment. For example, Swen, the Netherlands and Germany, all of which have a per-pa gross domtic product over $50, 000, acceptance of homosexualy is among the hight measured across the 34 untri surveyed. The study is a follow-up to a 2013 report that found many of the same patterns as seen today, although there has been an crease acceptance of homosexualy across many of the untri surveyed both years.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

However, while took nearly 15 years for acceptance to rise 13 pots om 2000 to jt before the feral legalizatn of gay marriage June 2015, there was a near equal rise acceptance jt the four years sce legalizatn. This staggerg 56-pot difference exceeds the next largt difference Japan by 20 pots, where 92% and 56% of those ag 18 to 29 and 50 and olr, rpectively, say homosexualy should be accepted by society. In South Korea, for example, those who classify themselv on the iologil left are more than twice as likely to say homosexualy is acceptable than those on the iologil right (a 39-percentage-pot difference).

In Spa, people wh a favorable opn of the Vox party, which recently has begun to oppose some gay rights, are much ls likely to say that homosexualy is acceptable than those who do not support the party. And Poland, supporters of the erng PiS (Law and Jtice), which has explicly targeted gay rights as anathema to tradnal Polish valu, are 23 percentage pots ls likely to say that homosexualy should be accepted by society than those who do not support the erng party. But even untri like France and Germany where acceptance of homosexualy is high, there are differenc between supporters and non-supporters of key right-wg populist parti such as Natnal Rally France and Alternative for Germany (AfD).

GAY MEN HAVG SEX WH WOMEN?

Relign, both as relat to relative importance people’s liv and actual relig affiliatn, also plays a large role perceptns of the acceptabily of homosexualy many societi across the globe. In 25 of the 34 untri surveyed, those who say relign is “somewhat, ” “not too” or “not at all” important their liv are more likely to say that homosexualy should be accepted than those who say relign is “very” important.

Among Israelis, those who say relign is not very important their liv are almost three tim more likely than those who say relign is very important to say that society should accept homosexualy. Though the opns of religly unaffiliated people n vary wily, virtually every untry surveyed wh a sufficient number of unaffiliated rponnts, “non” are more acceptg of homosexualy than the affiliated. So, terms of evolutn, they would seem to have a better chance of passg on their gen, while at the same time would seem that the gen that make women gay would quickly vanish om the gene pool.

While scientists have a theory for how male homosexualy propagat om one generatn to the next, no one has yet produced a viable explanatn for how the gen that promote lbianism might do the same. A study by Dutch psychologists published the March issue of the Journal of Sexual Medice reported that 10 to 12 percent of male and female children who feel disfort wh their genr go on to intify as gay or lbian as adults.

LBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENR HEALTH

“We found that gay men are disliked more than lbian women every untry we tted, ” acrdg to the study, which was nducted by three New York Universy psychologists and published the December issue of the journal Social Psychology and Personaly mori face pervasive discrimatn and hostily globally, wh same-sex sexual activy still illegal approximately 70 untri. ” The nverse is also largely te: For stance Ameri, llege stunts who endorsed “tradnal genr arrangements” were more likely to report negative attus toward gays, lbians and Lra Bettsoli, the study's lead thor, said she and her lleagu were surprised "at the nsistency of the relatnship between genr norm endorsement and sexual prejudice.

UNRSTANDG GAY & LBIAN INTI

""Even though there were some non-Wtern untri that did not nform to the pattern, the majory of untri did, " she said a, untri cludg Cha and India, the survey found that strong genr norms are actually associated wh greater tolerance of homosexualy — that is, people wh the strongt beliefs how men and women should behave were more likely to tolerate homosexualy, the oppose of the Wt, cludg the Ameris and Wtern report speculat that some Eastern untri, “both genr norms and nonheterosexualy are nsired ‘Wtern’ (or, perhaps, palist) ncepts, and those who are pro-Wtern are more likely to feel favorable toward both. ”In all 23 untri studied, the report found "gay men are rated more negatively than lbian women, ” and that trend was almost entirely driven by the views of men, except Poland, Hungary and Rsia, where women also assigned gay men high negative ratgs.

In the Uned Stat, men who are anti-gays largely direct their prejudice toward gay men, while women who are anti-gays direct their prejudice more equally toward gay men and gay women, the study found. “In other words, harborg prejudicial attus toward sexual mori is part of the social nstctn of what means to ‘be a man’” many Wtern untri, acrdg to the January 2019, the Amerin Psychologil Associatn’s first gui to issu specific to men and boys warned that “tradnal masculy iology” — what some characterized as “toxic masculy” — “has been shown to lim mal’ psychologil velopment, nstra their behavr, rult genr role stra and genr role nflict and negatively fluence mental health and physil health” and lked to both homophobia and snapshotThe study also shed light on some ntours of global homophobia. ”It also placed Amerin attus toward lbian, gay and bisexual people the ntext of other untri around the world: Argenta, Atralia, Belgium, Canada, Great Bra, Spa and Swen all have more posive attus toward sexual mori than do Amerins.

Where homosexual activy or viance om tablished genr rol/drs was banned by law or tradnal ctom, such nmnatn might be munited through sensatnal public trials, exile, medil warngs, and language om the pulp. However, throughout 150 years of homosexual social movements (roughly om the 1870s to today), lears and anizers stggled to addrs the very different ncerns and inty issu of gay men, women intifyg as lbians, and others intifyg as genr variant or nonbary.