The Last Bastion of Sexual and Gender Prejudice? Sexualities, Race, Gender, Religiosity, and Spirituality in the Examination of Prejudice Toward Sexual and Gender Minorities

Abstract

Prior research has reported that many Americans hold prejudicial attitudes toward sexual and gender minorities. Most of this research analyzed attitudes toward target categories in isolation and not in relation to attitudes toward heterosexuals. In addition, most previous research has not examined attitudes of members of sexual and gender minority categories toward other categories. While some research has examined the influence of religiosity on attitudes toward sexual and gender minorities, none of these studies has examined religiosity while also examining the influence of spirituality. In this article we drew on insights from queer theory to examine attitudes toward heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals, as well as individuals who practice polygamy, among college students. Three samples gathered over a four-year period (2009, 2011, 2013) at a private, nonsectarian, midsized urban university in the Southeastern United States were used. We found that heterosexuals had the most positive rating, followed in order of rating by gay/lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals, and then those who practice polygamy. Regression analyses revealed gender and race were significant predictors of attitudes toward various sexual and gender categories. Holding a literalistic view of the Bible and self-identifying as more religious were related to more negative views toward sexual minorities, while self-identifying as more spiritual was related to more positive views.

“Oh My God, I Sound Like a Horrible Person”: Generic Processes in the Conditional Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity

“…Interestingly, our respondents' overall responses to LGBT people mirrored those found in recent surveys (Worthen ). They demonstrated much more negative attitudes toward BT people in comparison to relatively positive attitudes toward cisgender LG people (Cragun and Sumerau ). In fact, even though our analyses reveal processes of conditional acceptance in relation to LGBT people, all of our respondents supported the legalization of same‐sex marriage.…”

“…At the same time, a growing body of scholarship noted that gains for LG people willing and able to approximate Christian expectations did not seem to translate into greater tolerance (much less acceptance) for other LG people or for bisexual and transgender (BT) people of varied identifications (Eisner ). As recently as 2017, surveys find that attitudes toward BT people lag far behind increasingly positive responses to LG people (Cragun and Sumerau ). Furthermore, the explosion of scholarship investigating intersections between homosexuality and Christianity over the last two decades (Rodriguez ; Wilcox ) did not tend to include considerations of BT or other sexual and gender minority experience (but see Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers ).…”

Bathrooms, Boundaries, and Emotional Burdens: Cisgendering Interactions Through the Interpretation of Transgender Experience

“…Utilizing college students as a sample also presents some limitations. Other researchers have pointed to the fact that college students are not representative of the general population (Cragun and Sumerau ), thus scholars should conduct analyses similar to this one while recruiting participants who are not currently enrolled in university. On the other hand, the fact that this analysis uses a sample of college students complicates the presumption that higher levels of education lead to less discriminatory attitudes.…”

Learning from the Religious Experiences of Bi+ Trans People

“…Attention to the experiences of such people expands many areas of sociology while revealing multiple unanswered questions. Further, emerging analyses show that bi+ and trans people are more negatively evaluated by religious and nonreligious others than other social groups (e.g., Cragun and Sumerau , ; Worthen ), and are less likely to be engaged in religion as adults despite relatively high levels of spirituality (Rodriguez, Lytle, and Vaughan ). While these emerging lines of scholarship are shedding light on neglected topics, they raise many questions for our fields.…”