Tag Archives: LGBT-tolerant

Are Lesbians Tolerated more Than Gay Men?

When professional female athletes comes out, it’s treated as something of a non-event. However, for a man the story will make headlines for weeks. It will be a moral discussion, manhood will be questioned and support will be given to those who feel threatened.

Why? Because we live in a male-focused society.

Studies have shown that tolerance of lesbians tends to be higher than that of gay men, and lesbians are less likely to be targeted for violence because of their sexuality. Gay males are more likely to be targeted not just with verbal abuse but for crimes such as theft, vandalism, or violence.

A study in the UK found that LGBT teenagers are nearly twice as likely to be bullied by straight classmates. However, in young adulthood, lesbians and straight women faced about the same amount of harassment, young gay men were nearly four times more likely to experience abuse than their straight colleagues.

So what makes lesbianism so inoffensive? Lesbian relationships are often seen as not real relationships, because sex between 2 women is not seen as real sex because a penis is not involved. And to have real sex, you need a man.

It is also ok for women to be physically affectionate with each other (to a point) without attracting negative attention.

Switch that to 2 men being affectionate, and society freaks out. Men are ‘supposed’ to act a certain way, and anything hinting difference is mocked.

This also goes to dress – a women dressed masculine maybe hassled for looking like a ‘dyke’, but is less likely to be physically threatened, which happens to men wearing skirts.

So what does it boil down to. Simple – female invisibility. It might seem illogical to think of female invisibility as a good thing, but it does mean that women who don’t match what society expects of them can fly under the radar.

In contrast, the existence of male visibility and privilege means many men are denied the right to be themselves.

 

When Will the Republican Party Move Out of the Stone Age?

In the US, while more and more Republicans declare their support for same-sex marriage, the party remains officially opposed to gay unions. Its National Platform calls for a ban on such measures, going as far as to amend the Constitution to put a stop to sexual equality.

A recent Huffington Post survey showed that 42 state branches of the Republican Party (out of a possible 50) have totally ignored same-sex marriage in their respective platforms. In Texas, for example, Grand Old Party members believe that “the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit.”

But nationally there are reasons to be cheerful. Dissidence is growing within the ranks and LGBT-tolerant Republicans are pressing for a total rewrite of the National Platform in 2016. Over the last year or so there have been valiant attempts in Indiana and Nevada to do away with opposition to gay marriage, but Republican activists were defeated.

Pressure groups such as the Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry is spending over $1 million to re-write the National Platform. Leader Tyler Deaton is devoted to abolishing anti-LGBT rhetoric within the GOP.

Freedom to Marry, the organisation that Deaton’s group is affiliated to, successfully campaigned to persuade the Democrat Party to include support for same-sex unions in its National Platform. Freedom to Marry’s national director Marc Solomon isn’t optimistic about pulling off the same coup in the GOP.

‘We’re not doing what we did with the Democratic platform,’ he said. ‘In that, we called for freedom-to-marry language, because that’s where the party was. And it was still a heavy lift and a push because the president wasn’t there yet. In this platform, what we’re saying is…

“Look, we recognize there is a mix of opinions on this issue and that people’s opinions are changing quickly on it.”‘

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