Urban Students’ Attitudes About Sexual Minorities Across Intersections of Sex and Race/Ethnicity: Data From a Longitudinal Study

Abstract

This study examined the association between having a gay or lesbian friend and urban students' attitudes about sexual minorities. Results indicate that females were more likely than males to express supportive views about gays and lesbians. The contours of these sex differences were distinct by race/ethnicity. Black males and females differed more frequently in their views than did Whites or Latinos. Latino and Latina students expressed consistent views on sexual minorities with one exception: Latinas were nearly twice as likely as Latino males to say that they would remain close to a friend who came out as gay or lesbian.

Standing in the intersection : using Photovoice to understand the lived experience of black gay college students attending predominantly white postsecondary institutions.

“…The threat of bullying and violence causes young people to fear even the appearance of behaving in any way other than heterosexual. This fear is surpassed only by the terror of other students' finding out a student is, in fact, LGBTQ (Almedia, Johnson, Corliss, Molnar & Azrael, 2009;Gastic, 2012;Pearson, Muller & Wilkinson, 2007). The challenge of keeping one's sexual orientation secret takes vast energy away from the concentration these students need to perform academically and engage socially (Dudley, 2013;Gastic, 2012).…”

“…This fear is surpassed only by the terror of other students' finding out a student is, in fact, LGBTQ (Almedia, Johnson, Corliss, Molnar & Azrael, 2009;Gastic, 2012;Pearson, Muller & Wilkinson, 2007). The challenge of keeping one's sexual orientation secret takes vast energy away from the concentration these students need to perform academically and engage socially (Dudley, 2013;Gastic, 2012). An unsupportive school environment contributes to a greater likelihood that LGBTQ youth will leave school or worse, engage in injurious and too often fatally self-destructive behavior (Kosciw, Greytak, Palmer & Boesen, 2014).…”

“…LGBTQ youth live under the constant very real threat of rejection by family, loss of close friendships, and community support (Balaji et al, 2012;Gastic, 2012;Rasmussen, 2004). Sadly, parental rejection too often leads to LGBTQ youth becoming part of the homeless youth population, where there are disproportionate numbers of…”