Dissecting the Source of Antigay Prejudice: A Ten-Year Follow Up

Several scholars have noted that people explicit or implicitly endorse a kind of intuitive ‘‘inversion theory’’ when it comes to violations of sexual orientation and gender role, namely, that ‘‘gay men are feminine and lesbians are masculine’’ (Schneider, 2004, p. 490).  As Lehavot and Lambert (2007) have noted, this means that the source of anti-gay prejudice may not simply reflect negative affect toward homosexual orientation per se.  Rather, this could also reflect negative attitudes towards presumed/inferred violations of gender roles. This raises a series of interesting questions. For example, if straight people dislike lesbians, to what extent is such animosity attributable to their sexual orientation, as opposed to the presumed violation of gender roles? In this talk I will review what is presently known about this and other related issues, and focus on some as-yet unresolved questions that merit additional empirical inquiry.