And there's a message to bullies: gay kids are not second-class citizens. But it's not completely clear that showing that "even the jocks are gay" necessarily makes things better for those guys gay or straight who don't so readily conform to traditional masculine norms. Since gayness and femininity are still so linked, it's nearly impossible to determine what homophobia's driving factor is.
As Kimmel explained to me, "As long as we think homosexuality is about effeminacy in men—as long as we think we can tell if a guy's gay if he's acting 'feminine'—then we can't tease it out. For now, though, it's hard to say: Is being a feminine man bad because it's considered evidence that you're gay?
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Or is being gay bad because it's seen as feminine? Or are both bad? And if the association between femininity and gayness is severed, what happens next? The changes over the last two decades may provide some clues. After all, anti-gay attitudes in the United States have declined dramatically since the s and '90s. As recently as ten years ago, the public was evenly divided on whether homosexuality should be accepted or discouraged by society.
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Today, 59 percent of Americans say it should be accepted, according to a Gallup poll released recently. For the past three years, more Americans support same-sex marriage than oppose it. The most recent Pew Research Center survey , conducted this past March, found 49 percent in favor, compared to 44 percent opposed—and other polls have put the level of support even higher.
About two-thirds of the public thinks that gay and lesbian couples can be as good parents as heterosexual couples and that they should have the same legal rights as their straight counterparts. Among young people, especially, anti-gay views are decidedly the exception. About three-quarters of millennials believe homosexuality should be accepted and 70 percent support same-sex marriage. And, in large part, it is young men who have been driving this trend.
Ever since we've been asking about it in public opinion polls, men have been more likely than women to espouse anti-gay views—a fact that buttressed the theory that masculinity is intimately connected with homophobia, says Tristan Bridges , assistant professor of sociology at The College at Brockport, SUNY. But just recently that gender gap has begun to narrow. Among millennials, it's virtually non-existent: 69 percent of young women support same-sex marriage, compared to 65 percent of young men.
Though homophobia is by no means eradicated—after all, Bridges points out, straight men especially still seem be far more comfortable with gay identity than actual gay sex —the largely supportive response to Collins and Rogers coming out would seem to reflect a real and rapid change in anti-gay attitudes, which should certainly be celebrated. What's far less clear is whether this shift is actually changing the way homophobia is used as a weapon for maintaining traditional masculinity. That's what sociologist C. Pascoe found when she spent a year and a half at a California high school doing research for her book, Dude, You're a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School.
Homophobic slurs were tossed around constantly, but the students insisted they weren't really about sexual orientation. That's just mean,'" she told me. Instead, boys labeled their peers "fags" for things like dancing, being too emotional, caring about clothing, being incompetent, or not have success with girls.
While actually being gay wasn't exactly accepted, Pascoe discovered that it wasn't nearly as bad as being considered an unmasculine guy. As one student told her , "Well, being gay is just a lifestyle. You can still throw a football around and be gay.
But the third boy, who broke both the norms of sexuality and gender, faced such severe tormenting that he eventually dropped out of school.
Some scholars see cause for optimism, though. For example, Eric Anderson , an American professor of sociology at the University of Winchester, England, argues that declining homophobia is already starting to create "inclusive masculinities. As anti-gay attitudes decline and "the stigma of being called gay doesn't sting" anymore, Anderson explained to me, the boundaries of acceptable masculinity expand. If being feminine is no longer considered incontrovertible "evidence" that you're gay, who cares if you bend gender norms?
Anderson's research backs up his theory. He's found that the male college athletes and fraternity members he studied in the U. But others aren't convinced of such a large-scale transformation. Anderson argues that since sports have historically been highly homophobic spaces, other male groups are likely to be moreinclusive than the primarily white, straight, middle-upper class college athletes he has researched. But studies suggest that, paradoxically, those are the guys who may actually have the most freedom to bend the rules of masculinity.
Pascoe describes it as "jock insurance. But I would say that that is the case for a very select group of men. Research on LGBT students' experiences in K schools also suggests that anti-gay harassment may be driven as much by gender anxiety as by homophobia. For starters, the growing acceptance of homosexuality has been slow to translate into a change for LGBT youth, according to GLSEN's national school climate survey , which has been conducted every two years since There has been some improvement: The frequency of anti-gay comments has slowly but steadily decreased over the last decade.
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The most recent report from found the percentage of students who reported hearing slurs like "faggot" or "dyke" was about 70 percent, a drop from over 80 percent in Even the pervasive use of the expression "that's so gay" seems to have slightly declined in recent years though "no homo" may have risen to take its place. Yet LGBT students' reports of being harassed or assaulted held steady from to , before finally dropping somewhat in And there has been no change at all in incidence of negative comments about gender expression. Of course, some of that may be because bending gender norms is conflated with being gay in a culture that still hasn't let go of the idea that gender and sexuality are linked.
But the high rates of harassment and violence faced by transgender people—who most radically reject the gender binary—suggest that gender policing is playing a role over and above the role of homophobia. A whopping 80 percent of transgender students reported that they felt unsafe at school because of their gender expression.
And it doesn't get much better for adults: Ninety percent of the trans and gender non-conforming people surveyed by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality reported experiencing harassment, mistreatment, or discrimination on the job, or hid their identities to avoid it. A report on anti-LGBT violence from the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that trans people were 28 percent more likely to be physically assaulted, and trans women specifically made up 40 percent of hate murder victims.
It's not just boys who are punished for breaking gender norms, of course. Take Griner for example. In an op-ed in the New York Times , she recalled that in seventh grade "the teasing about my height, appearance and sexuality went on nonstop, every day.
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Some even wanted me to prove it to them. Still, at this moment in history, it is easier to be a gender non-conforming girl. So while girls also hold each other to rigid standards, and are vicious when someone doesn't conform one word: slut-shaming , they're far less likely to be homophobic. The GLSEN report, for example, found that over half of students reported hearing remarks about students not acting "masculine enough," but just over a third heard comments about students' "femininity" as often.
Up to a certain age, girls can usually get away with being tomboys, while "sissy" boys are discouraged from very early on—and not just by their peers. Studies have shown that parents—especially fathers—are more uncomfortable with their young sons playing with dolls or dresses than with their daughters doing stereotypically "boy" activities. And though stepping too far outside of acceptable gender norms is seen as a problem for everyone, to a degree, women may even be rewarded for distancing themselves from femininity at times.
This is not to say that declining homophobia doesn't have the potential to lead to a serious reimagining of masculinity more broadly. Following the European Parliament elections, the New Flemish Alliance N-VA was criticized for joining the European Conservatives and Reformists parliamentary group, which contains several right-wing homophobic parties. However, N-VA asserted they would vote in favour of LGBT rights, and argued that this was an opportunity to change opinions of other parties in that group.
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In , Dominiek Spinnewyn-Sneppe, newly-elected federal member of Parliament and member of Flemish Interest, was quoted in an interview as criticizing same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples. After public outcry, party chairman Tom Van Grieken condemned her words, claiming they did not reflect his own opinion or that of the party. While he defended her right to free speech, he claimed that Flemish Interest will not seek to reverse any acquired rights of the LGBT community.
Homosexuality is widely accepted in the media. The first TV personality to publicly come out as gay was singer Will Ferdy nl in , when the topic was still taboo.
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This received widespread media coverage. Belgian gay rights activism is made most visible by means of pride parade demonstrations. Marches have been held annually in Belgium's capital Brussels since , with similar events having been held intermittently in preceding years in both Brussels and other cities. While the marches have a festive character, they are also used to present the gay movement's political agenda in the form of a list of demands.
The list has been updated a number of times and has included demands for anti-discrimination laws, inclusion of gay relationships in high school sex education and the right to adoption by same-sex parents. In the march, some participants were seen with a banner "Thank you Verhofstadt! The name was adopted for the first ever Belgian demonstration march for gay rights in , taken from the same-named series of Dutch marches which were first held in After this first short series of annual events, it was only in that the decision was made to again organise the marches regularly, starting anew on 5 May in Antwerp and then bi-annually in Ghent and again in Antwerp.
The latter choice of city was motivated by what is known as "Black Sunday", when the right-wing party Vlaams Blok now Vlaams Belang scored a major electoral victory in Antwerp. Then in , "Pink Saturday" was moved indefinitely to Brussels, and became an annual event. The next year, the list of demands was for the first time prominently displayed on 10 large banners carried by participants throughout the march. In , Antwerp was the host city of the third World Outgames.
The Belgian Pride parade was attended by an estimated , people. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. LGBT rights in Belgium. Main article: Same-sex marriage in Belgium. See also: LGBT parenting. See also: Sexual orientation and military service. See also: LGBT social movements. LGBT portal Belgium portal.