Beyond homonegativity: Understanding Hong Kong people’s attitudes about social acceptance of gay/lesbian people, sexual orientation discrimination protection, and same-sex marriage

Tien Ee Dominic Yeo*, Tsz Hang Chu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

34 Citations (Scopus)
347 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This study examined attitudes about social acceptance, discrimination protection, and marriage equality for gay/lesbian people with a representative sample of 1,008 Hong Kong Chinese adults via a telephone survey. Despite majority endorsement of homosexuality (52.29% positive vs. 34.12% negative) and discrimination protection (50.72% favorable vs. 14.64% opposed), attitudes toward same-sex marriage diverged (32.79% favorable vs. 39.41% opposed). There was a sharp distinction in accepting gay/lesbian people as co-workers (83.57%) and friends (76.92%) versus relatives (40.19%). Having more homosexual/bisexual friends or co-workers contributed to greater endorsement of social acceptance and discrimination protection but not same-sex marriage. Age, religion, political orientation, and homonegativity consistently predicted attitudes toward social acceptance, discrimination protection, and same-sex marriage, whereas gender-role beliefs, conformity to norms, and cultural orientations had varying impacts. This article informs theory and advocacy by disentangling homonegativity from attitudes about gay/lesbian issues and highlighting the centrality of family-kinship and relative-outsider delineation in Chinese societies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1372-1390
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Homosexuality
Volume65
Issue number10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Aug 2018

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Gender Studies
  • Social Psychology

User-Defined Keywords

  • Chinese values
  • discrimination protection
  • homophobia
  • Hong Kong
  • same-sex marriage
  • social acceptance

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