Survey Shows Anti-LGBTQ Attitudes Still High - Especially Among Youth
A new survey indicates that despite decades of progress and major strides in recent years toward securing full equality before the law, a significant percentage of the general population - 10% - still harbor fallacious notions about their LGBTQ friends, neighbors, colleagues, and fellow citizens, reports UK newspaper the Independent. One theory as to why: Trolls spreading hate online are having an outsized influence on people's thinking when it comes to sexual minorities.
The strange and worrying aspect of the new survey - though it also jibes with the idea that anti-LGBTQ sentiment is being propagated online - is that it's younger people, especially those aged 18 - 24, who are buying into ideas that non-heterosexual are "dangerous" or "immoral, or that they can be "cured" and "turned straight."
The Independent noted that these results were found against a background of increasing incidents of anti-LGBTQ hate crimes in some parts of Britain, including England and Wales.
The research was conducted by an LGBTQ equality advocacy guru called Galop, the Independent reported. An official of the group, Nick Antjoule, told the press that the survey was "alarming" and "warns of a generational pivot ahead and a bumpy road for those of us committed to challenging anti-LGBT violence and abuse."
The results were also in line with the current high level of political polarization, the newspaper noted:
The research found that the views of under-25s were more polarised than their older counterparts, pushing towards "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree" rather than giving answers in the middle ground.
The Independent offered some specifics from the data gathered by the survey:
Almost one in five under-25s said gay people could be "cured", compared to just 5 percent of respondents aged between 55 and 65 and 3 percent of 45- to 54-year-olds.
When asked whether LGBT+ people were "dangerous" to others, 16 percent of under-25s and 15 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds agreed, but the figure was only 4 percent for the oldest age group surveyed.
Those worrying results echoed similar findings from the United States, where, earlier this year, a survey showed increased "discomfort" with LGBTQs among America's younger generation.
As EDGE reported last June, a poll conducted by GLAAD showed that current declining acceptance among younger Americans is a continuation of a trend that started just after the 2016 elections — and, in its timing, that mirrors skyrocketing numbers of anti-LGBTQ state laws around the country, as well as soaring hate crimes targeting gays, lesbians, and, especially, trans people.
The GLAAD poll asked 1,970 people to weigh in on how they feel about issues ranging from seeing a same-sex couple holding hands to learning that their child has an LGBTQ teacher at school. Other questions asked about how respondents might feel about a family member coming out as gay, learning that someone at the same place of worship is LGBTQ, or having a non-heterosexual physician. The same poll in 2018 showed an overall decline in acceptance of sexual minorities, and while levels of support among most age brackets stabilized between 2018 and 2019, acceptance in one surprising demographic fell even further when the poll was conducted this year: Those between the ages of 18 to 34.
In fact, the 2019 poll shows an even more drastic loss of support in that age group, despite an all-time high of openness from non-cis and non-heterosexual people, and unprecedented representation in popular media. But at the same time, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has become sharper and more virulent, and lawmakers from the White House on down have stepped up attacks on LGBTQ Americans and their families. At the same time, violent rhetoric from religious figures on the extreme right is growing louder and more extreme.
Polls in both 2018 and 2019 saw levels of acceptance among younger Americans drop by double digits: In 2017, 63% of those polled who belonged to the 18-34 age bracket had no problem with gay people in just about any context, but as the Trump presidency settled in, support among that age bracket plummeted, reaching 53% in 2018. The 2019 report saw a further plunge, to 45%
The survey was conducted by The Harris Poll, the CEO of which, John Gerzma, told HuffPost, "In this toxic age, tolerance seems to be parsed out.
"Nothing today should be taken for granted."
In comments to USA Today, Gerzma worried that "These numbers... signal a looming social crisis in discrimination." Gerzma pointed to the seeming paradox of younger people taking other social issues such as climate change and gender parity to heart, even as they seemed to be turning their backs on sexual minorities.