Sexual Prejudice and Gender: Do Heterosexuals' Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Differ?

Journal of Social Issues, Summer, 2000 by Gregory M. Herek

A plausible interpretation of this pattern is suggested by the earlier discussion of sexual prejudice as both a minority group attitude and an expression of gender and sexual identity. To the extent that considerations of one's own sexuality or gender are activated by survey questions about homosexuality, it follows that questions about gay men should be expected to evoke a different set of beliefs and feelings than do questions about lesbians. For many heterosexual men, being asked about their attitudes toward gay men probably activates feelings and beliefs associated with a heterosexual masculine identity and its imperative to prove oneself by rejecting gay men. Once this schema is activated, subsequent items about lesbians are subsumed into it. Presenting items about lesbians first, however, may activate a quite different schema, perhaps one having to do with religious or political values or fascination with lesbians as objects of sexual desire (Kite & Whitley, 1998; Louderback & Whitley, 1997). Consequen tly, the attitudes expressed are considerably less negative and less passionate because they are not based on the felt imperative to assert or prove one's s heterosexual masculinity. By contrast, rejection of lesbians is less relevant to most heterosexual women's self-image (although the fact that some women felt less comfortable around lesbians than gay men suggests that gender and sexual identity are probably relevant in some cases). Consequently, their attitudes toward gay men and lesbians alike probably can be better understood as minority group attitudes.

It is difficult to evaluate this interpretation by examining only attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. If heterosexual men's and women's attitudes toward another, comparable group were available, the patterns might become clearer. Fortunately, a relevant comparison is available from a follow-up national survey that I conducted in 1999, which included feeling thermometers for "bisexual men" and "bisexual women" as well as for lesbians and gay men. [10] If heterosexual men consistently organize their attitudes about sexual orientation more in terms of their personal gender schema than is the case for heterosexual women, we might expect their attitudes toward bisexual men and women to show a gender difference similar to their attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. Any differences in women's attitudes, by contrast, would be expected to occur between sexual orientation groups rather than between males and females.

As shown in Figure 1, such a pattern is indeed evident in the 1999 data. Heterosexual men expressed colder feelings (lower thermometer ratings) for male targets than female targets, regardless of whether the thermometer referred to homosexuals or bisexuals. By contrast, heterosexual women expressed similar levels of warmth within sexual orientation groups, but their attitudes toward bisexuals were colder than their attitudes toward homosexuals.

Do heterosexuals' attitudes toward lesbians and gay men differ qualitatively as well as quantitatively? At first glance, the data on context effects suggest an affirmative answer to this question. Heterosexual men apparently organize their attitudes in terms of gender and sexual identity, which results in different ways of thinking about lesbians and about gay men. Heterosexual women, by contrast, appear to organize their attitudes more in terms of a minority group paradigm that does not differentiate gay men so sharply from lesbians. However, the magnitude of these differences should not be overstated. Moreover, the fact that attitudes toward lesbians and toward gay men are highly correlated (regardless of the order in which items are presented) indicates that such attitudes are closely linked in the minds of most respondents, male and female alike. In all likelihood, most heterosexual men and women employ both paradigms to some extent when thinking about gay men and lesbians. Whether or not an individual r elies more on one paradigm than the other will depend on a variety of factors, including how her or his own gender and sexual identity are defined relative to homosexuality. It may be useful in future research to explore the possibility that heterosexual men tend to give somewhat greater emphasis to issues of gender and sexual identity, especially in their evaluations of gay men, whereas heterosexual women tend to frame their attitudes mainly in terms of a minority group schema.